Walking five blocks to the post office left me soaked to my underwear. Puddles several inches deep. Runoff pouring down the street. If April showers bring May flowers, this should be a bumper year for flowers.
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Easter egg
In anticipation of Orthodox Easter (which will be on April 27th this year), I decided to hide an Easter egg on this site. If you find it first, I will send you chocolate, enough to make it worth your while to solve this puzzle. There are at least three ways to find the Easter egg.
Rules to win chocolate: Follow the instructions that appear at the Easter egg precisely, then return here to post a comment saying you’ve found it. First comment (judged by time stamp on comment) gets chocolate. There is a possibility for a second prize winner, and there are instructions at the Easter egg for claiming second prize (also chocolate). When you comment, be sure to enter your correct email address, because that is how I will reach you to find out where to send the chocolate.
If you find the Easter egg, and you want to talk about it in the comments here, please use the ROT-13 cipher so you don’t spoil things for those who wish to find it on their own.
And yes, I know this puzzle has absolutely nothing to do with the purported purpose of this blog.
Cuttlefish? Poetry? Wha?…
One part marine invertebrates + two parts Edward Lear = Digital Cuttlefish. Very silly.
“Intelligent design” isn’t.
Nor is Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled” intelligent. You already knew that, but the National Council of Science Educators gives resources to back up your knowledge here.
Where did they go?!
Nine years ago, I served on the old Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Pamphlet Commission. We were the ones responsible for producing all the pamphlets for the denomination. Back then, the World Wide Web was still new and shiny and full of untapped potential. During my time on the Commission, I said we should offer the text of all pamphlets for free on the UUA Web site. This idea provoked strong opposition, both from other members of the Commission, and from UUA staff.
People said, “If we offered them for free, we wouldn’t be able to sell printed versions.” I said, “So what? The point of a pamphlet is to reach as many people as possible. We’ll reach more people online.” People said, “But if we offer them for free, congregations will print them up on their own printers.” I said, “So what if they do? Some small congregations can’t afford pamphlets any other way, and they’re the ones who need the pamphlets most. The congregations who can afford pamphlets will find that our printed versions look so much better that it will be worth it to purchase them.” People said, “But what about copyright?” I said, “Not a real issue. You retain copyright, but put a notice offering permission of any Unitarian Universalist congregation to print as many as needed.”
Finally, I tried to make my real point. I said, “This is not about printed materials at all! We should be concerned about making our pamphlets easily available on this shiny new medium, the World Wide Web.” But I was ignored.
Then the Pamphlet Commission was dissolved, and UUA staff took over producing pamphlets. And lo and behold, suddenly one day the full text of all the pamphlets was available online. Hooray! We did the right thing for once!
Well. Sort of….
Just now I went to the UUA Web site to try to find a pamphlet online so I could send the URL to a newcomer to our church who wanted to know more about Unitarian Universalism. But apparently the texts of most of our pamphlets are no longer available on the UUA Web site (or if available, so hard to find that they might as well be unavailable). And when the text of a pamphlet was available, said text was accompanied by a long and nasty-sounding copyright notice. (Update: Chris found the old pamphlets page archived here. Thanks, Chris!)
I’d love to be proved wrong on this (Update: Deb proves me wrong here — Deb has long been a strong advocate for making pamphlets freely available on the Web. Yay, Deb!). I’d love to have someone show me the easily accessible Web page where I can find texts for every current UUA pamphlet, so I can share those pamphlets with our newcomers. I’d love it if every UUA pamphlet came with a Creative Commons 3.0 (by-nd-nc) license, so I could freely reproduce the texts of pamphlets on our church Web site.
And if someone can’t prove me wrong — if UUA pamphlets are mostly available only as dead tree resources — then maybe it’s time to gather a group of people who actually understand new media, a group that would write and produce free online pamphlets (text, audio, video) under a Creative Commons license.
Author releases self under CC license
An author has released himself under a Creative Commons license. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow has made himself available for download under a creative commons license. As usual, science fiction authors are well ahead of mainstream authors in their use of technology.
Mr. C. for prez
Mr. Crankypants is announcing his candidacy for presidency. No, silly, not the United States presidency, but the presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Mr. Crankypants is running on the Complacency and Status Quo platform. Thus, you will vote for Mr. C. in 2009 if you believe that everything about Unitarian Universalism is just fine and doesn’t need to be changed.
Here’s a few specifics about the Complacency and Status Quo viewpoint to help you decide to vote for Mr. C.:
- Children should be seen and not heard in our congregations. Let them be sent away to Sunday school where they will not bother the adults.
- Teenagers should be forced into unproductive and overly anti-authoritarian behavior (the poor dears must rebel against something, why not their church?), and eventually convinced that they do not like church. Thereafter, they should be actively discouraged from attending church until they are earning a decent income and can afford a good-sized pledge.
- We are religious liberals. By definition, we are not oppressing anyone. We do not need any anti-racism stuff and nonsense, nor do we need to do any anti-classism, anti-homophobia, anti-anything work. Mr. C. is wondering why you even thought there was a need to bring up the subject.
- We must encourage continued mediocrity in ministry. We want more boring sermons, slip-shod liturgy, and poor religious leadership — and theological schools should continue to educate our ministers to this end.
- We must encourage continued destructiveness in lay people. We want them to continue to undermine anyone in authority, and we want them to start bruising conflicts about meaningless issues. To this end, Mr. C.’s administration will offer conflict training (as in, how to create conflict).
- We must discourage growth in our churches. If we let new people into our churches, we’ll just have to share resources with them. And if we let new congregations form, that means there will be less Veatch money for the rest of us. No growth!!
- We don’t want to become some kind of New Age group, or some kind of pseudo-evangelical church. Therefore, we must actively and absolutely discourage any kind of spiritual vitality or relevance. Religion from the neck up!!
There are other fine candidates for UUA president, but they all seem to be advocating for change. You know everything about Unitarian Universalism is perfect — so instruct your congregation’s delegates to vote for Mr. Crankypants at the 2009 General Assembly.
Children seen and not heard — Get rid of youth — No need for anti-oppression work — Mediocrity in ministry — Continued destructive conflict in congregations — No growth — Religion from the neck up.