Monthly Archive for March, 2006Page 2 of 6

Do your duty.

Published
by
aly hawkins
on 28 March 2006
in The Intra-Web-O-Sphere! and current events
. 4 Comments

Sign here. Or just be amused that the person who started it is under the impression that it could work.

On Long Roads

Published
by
michael lee
on 26 March 2006
in church and prayer
. 5 Comments

Kyrie Yeshua

For gnarled hands bent
in prayer
by supplications and rites bent
by 60 years of travel down long roads bent

For old children
With young hearts

For old children
With faith etched on their hands
And heads
And joy-drenched faces

For old children
bent toward you
As towering oaks toward the sun

We your young children give thanks


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36 Reasons Why I Suck At Radio

Published
by
michael lee
on 24 March 2006
in art and culture and technology
. 13 Comments

So, I did an on-air interview yesterday for a radio show. This is very similar to the kind of thing that Ryan Bolger did earlier this year, with the exception that he was speaking to a listening audience of, let’s say, billions of people, whereas I was speaking to a listening audience of, let’s say, 6 (I’m not counting the board engineer, since he was playing Nintendo DS during most of the interview). Yes, friends, I was a guest on the Mighty KAPU.

The topic was on how peer-to-peer networking, illegal file sharing, is changing the music industry. If you know me, you know that this is like playing t-ball for me. This is my end zone. This is my home run gimme softball lob. This is my bumper-bowling, no miss, perfect 300, slam-dunk, 3-minute powerplay, this is my … well, those are all of the sports metaphors I know, but I think you get my point. I’ve lectured on this topic, written extensively on it, led group discussions for both students and peers, and spent maybe 6 years developing a highly nuanced, deeply complex, and subtle perspective on these trends:

Under our current economic system, we balance supply and demand, creation and compensation, through the exchange of commodity units of property, which means that in order to compensate artists, we have to treat their output like property (with some limitations and exceptions), which may not be the perfect system, but as long as the system is in place, sets up normative ethical behaviors in the interest of protecting the property rights of the content creator, which makes illegal distribution not an ethical dilemma, but an ethical wrong, and while we may recognize that the system has inherent flaws, the only ethically proper choices are either to participate in the system (by using the content and paying for the unit of property) or to refuse to participate in the system (by not using the content, and not paying for the content), but to say that the flaws of the system allow you to selectively participate in it (by using the content and not paying for it) is a farcical argument at best, coupled with the fact that there is a burgeoning movement of artists and listeners who are electing to engage each other outside of the property system of content creation, and instead distributing content for free and being sustained by the engendered community brought about by their creative efforts, all of which is a separate question from whether or not the proliferation of illegal file sharing is the root cause of the economic downturn in the music industry, or whether additional factors like increased DVD sales, grassroots media, and gaming systems are competing for the same consumer attention, or the tapering of redundant media upgrade sales (sales of previously purchased music to fans moving from tape to CD), might be the primary causes, a view recently given support by a national study undertaken by the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

So, when the light flipped to red, and the host said, “So, tell me Michael, what do you think about file sharing?”

I

Said

Everything.

Everything I’ve ever thought on the subject. It was a violent heaving of opinion and data into the microphone, a blast of complex and subtle and nuanced distinctions; it was 6 years of thought all spilled out in one unbroken stream-of-consciousness diatribe.

When it was all over, the hosts just both kind of stared at me. One flipped numbly through his notebook. The other host tried to rescue me by asking me some very simple, not open-ended questions that I could answer with one or two sentences. Instead, I proceeded to launch into part 2 of my thesis on Property and Creation. Mercifully, the segment was only 4 minutes long, so they cut me off after a while and went to commercial.

I suck at radio.

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Phreaky Phriday: Plork

Published
by
michael lee
on 24 March 2006
in The Intra-Web-O-Sphere!, art and culture, audio and technology
. 5 Comments

What’s nerdy? Owning a portable apple audio rig

Plork W01-10

What’s nerdier than nerdy? being a fan of electronic minimalism music.

What’s the nerdiest thing ever? The Princeton Laptop Orchestra, or PLORK - an orchestra made up entirely of people playing electronic minimalism on their laptops.

The Dementape Letters: Five

Published
by
aly hawkins
on 23 March 2006
in emerging church and writing workshop
. 38 Comments

Posts in the The Dementape Letters series

  1. The Dementape Letters: One
  2. The Dementape Letters: Two
  3. The Dementape Letters: Three
  4. The Dementape Letters: Four
  5. The Dementape Letters: Five
  6. The Dementape Letters: Six

[It's been some time since Dementape's last correspondence with her niece and novice tempter, Gutrot. The Head of the Department of Kingdom Thwartation got a better firewall, but she has, alas, grown lax with security once again, and this missive appeared last evening in the storage area under our stairs where we keep the catbox. You can read Dementape's previous letters starting here.]

My dear niece Gutrot,

I must admit that your most recent attempt at high-level temptation has paid off…this once. It pains me a little to do so, considering the monumental failure of your previous “creativity” (the aftershocks of which we are still feeling), but no foul deed must go unrewarded. So — well done. You may expect an increase to your Soul Ration after the Demon Resources payroll paperwork has been approved by the Head of DR and Our Father Below.

I had my doubts about you, Gutrot, but you have proved yourself in the area that matters most: instinct. All the education that Hell affords can never teach you that tingling feeling you get when you sense an opening and worm your way in. And worm you did! If we are lucky, your work will bear rotten fruit in the Emerging Church for years to come.

They didn’t even see it coming! I’m not even sure they see it now your work is done. Keep them blinded, Gutrot, and they may never know how this seemingly subtle shift in course has fundamentally changed their Kingdom Values. When they began this Emerging Church venture only two years ago, your Subjects pledged to keep the impoverished and marginalized at the center of their Community…yet now, thanks to your undermining handiwork, the poor are marginalized more than ever. Again, I say: Well done.

It was truly breathtaking how you managed it: When the time came to appoint new Elders who would guide the Church in Her spiritual undertakings, you saw the confusion and questions surrounding what qualifies a Person for such a position. (Confusion is a tempter’s best friend — it so easily disintegrates into Chaos. Delicious!) The danger for the Emerging Church’s dedication to live embedded in their surrounding Culture is that they can swallow so many of those Culture’s Values without even noticing. Instead of drawing together to Pray and seek guidance from The Enemy’s infernal Word, you nudged them to look outward to learn what qualifications their Culture counts as worthy. You saw the opening, and wormed your way in.

Honestly, I can barely believe the spectacle of your success. They have appointed five Men who know how to do only one thing well: make money. Of course, I am thrilled at the prospect that these moguls will make decisions that are based solely on the Church’s best financial interest (though we must never underestimate the Changing Power of the Holy Spirit, even in the most hardened Subjects); but I am most excited by the seismic shift this indicates in the Values of the Emerging Church Herself. How marvelous that they now equate fiscal success with spiritual maturity and health! Their reasoning makes perfect sense from a Worldly perspective: who better to guide the young Community than Men who have guided businesses through the murky waters of today’s uncertain economic climate? But from a Kingdom perspective, they have missed the mark entirely. They don’t suspect that they’ve bought into the Lie we’ve been telling for millennia: “God helps those who help themselves.”

If luck and Evil are with us, this shifting Value will burgeon into a conviction that the poor — who clearly do not “help themselves” — should be viewed with mistrust and ridicule, since The Enemy is obviously not on their side. At the very least, the wisdom of the marginalized will stay where it belongs: on the margins. You must continue your work, Gutrot, to ensure this opportunity goes our way.

Your mother sends her worst. We are both proud of you, and look forward to the tasty Souls you will undoubtedly bring in droves to the Table of Our Father Below.

Your vile and affectionate aunt,

Dementape

Previous in series: The Dementape Letters: Four

Next in series: The Dementape Letters: Six