My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the end of last summer. This form of cancer has a high mortality rate, and unfortunately my dad was no exception. He passed away yesterday.
Of course, I have lots I could write about: his life, our relationship, the funeral planning, etc. But what I’m intrigued about right now is Twitter and Facebook. I tweeted a couple quick messages about traveling to see my Dad as he was dying, and then planning for the funeral. My Twitter messages automatically update my Facebook status, and so pretty quickly all of my FB friends as well as people following me on Twitter knew about my father’s death.
I received emails, tweets, FB messages and FB wall messages offering prayers, thoughts, help, peace and love. And it meant means a lot. Maybe there are people who think that words offered through a screen are not as “good” or “real” as words on paper, over the phone, or in person. But those people probably don’t know the feeling that comes from sharing your life with a community of friends across the country world, and receiving peace and love back within minutes from all sorts of people throughout your life.
I could list reason by reason why these relationships are as “real” as any others. But I don’t need to, because I know they are. And millions of other people know they are. It’s a reality that is here, and if you don’t get it, well, it’s not going away.
Over at our podcast we have published interviews/conversations with all four moderator candidates. My personal thanks go out to all four candidates and to also to the DAIO co-hosts: David Ealy, Zach Sasser, and Camille LeBron-Powell. They did the lion’s share of the work on this, since I sat out due to my involvement with Bruce Reyes-Chow’s campaign.
Since I sat out, I had the chance to listen to the interviews for the first time just as our regular listeners do. I am really pleased with the caliber of candidates we have running for moderator. And I am also really pleased that we were able to do this project. This is a unique chance for any Presbyterian to listen to the candidates before GA. It is one thing to read what they have written, it is another to hear short statements from them at the Assembly, and it’s a whole step up to hear them for 30-45 minutes talk about what they think and believe.
If you, dear reader, know of any commissioners to GA then point them to the interviews so they can get to know their moderator candidates.
Posted by : Shawn in (Politics)
Disclaimer: I’m supporting Obama. Not because I think he would do that much different as President than any of the other Repblicrats. But because he is raising conversations and questions that other politicians at his level are not. Change is going to come from the bottom, not the top, and I think Obama can inspire change from the bottom more than Clinton.
So early in the primary season I subscribed to both Clinton’s and Obama’s blog and they are both pretty one-sided and spin-minded. It’s been interesting, enjoyable and frustrating to get their perspectives on the same events. But I’ve had it with one particular argument that the Clinton campaign is making and that is that she should be the nominee because she has won in key swing states.
Let’s be clear, Clinton isn’t winning general elections in swing states, she is winning Democrat elections in swing states. She has talked about how she is the candidate of the “base” of the Democratic party. Well, guess what? The base is called the base for a reason, because they are going to vote for the Democratic candidate no matter what! The question isn’t who wins the base of the party (although Obama can lay claim to the base as well), but rather who can draw more voters altogether - base, swing, Republican, Green, etc.
Clinton can’t shake her polarizing legacy and deep roots in established Democrat circles, while Obama is drawing in all sorts of people who wouldn’t otherwise vote Democrat (like me - Green Part ftw).
It’s a shame that we had these two candidates now, because if Clinton were running against Al Gore, John Kerry, or John Edwards I’d support her in a heartbeat.
Posted by : Shawn in (Internet)
I typo. A lot. And the kind of mistakes I make when typo are ones the make me look really stupid. I often use “are” instead of “our,” or the other way around. I throw apostrophe’s where they shouldn’t be (yes, I did that on purpose). Sometimes I substitute entire words for a completely different word. So when I mean to say “Did you see that movie about the womanfrom Paris?” I will instead type, “Did you see that money about the wombat from Paris?”
Here’s the thing (case in point - I just typed “Here’s they thing”), if I read over what I just typed I immediately realize the exact mistake I made. It isn’t that I don’t know when to use “our” vs. “are” or even “affect” vs. “effect.” I know that apostrophes have no business being in plural nouns. These truly are typos, not intentional uses of the wrong word or punctuation*. I think what I realize is that I type phonetically. I type what I hear in my head and sometimes my fingers mishear my thoughts.
The problem is that it makes me look stupid, and people can be pretty merciless when it comes to grammar. Recently, I was caught in a fairly ugly typo on a website that I run. Someone asked me in a somewhat condescending tone “Who put that up there?” When I told them that it was me they looked at me in disbelief that I would do such a thing. I guess I should take that as a compliment that they think such a mistake was beneath me.
hey, @ least i dont typ lik ths.
*I will confess to having a tendency to abuse commas.
Calling all Prebyterian bloggers, Tweeters, and other Web 2.0 junkies or wannabes! It’s time to do General Assembly - Web 2.0 style. Here are a couple of ways I envision:
1) Let’s have a Presbyterian bloggers event. I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but I would be pumped to meet other bloggers face to face. Does anyone local know a good place that we could hang out or does anyone have access to space that we could inhabit for a moment?
2) Twitter. I’ll propose that we use the tag #GA218 for GA tweets. That way we can follow what’s going on with Tweetscan.
3) Live blogging. I’m new to this and the only service I’ve used is shiftedit. I’ve started a liveblog here. It’s possible (probable) we will want multiple liveblogs for various meetings. It’s also possible (probable) that one of you knows a better way to do this. If so, speak up!
Ok, bloggers! It’s time to start the Midnight Bark! This will only work if word gets around. If you think this is a worthy endeavor then share the linklove and drop a post on your blog spreading the word. I’m happy to start compiling a list of all the bloggers that are going to be at GA, so that we can get connected and follow each other’s experiences.
