I've been thinking a bit lately that everybody is talking. I'm not quite sure if anyone is listening anymore. So while I'm going to continue to blog over at work and Every Church Online, but personally I'm going to try to listen more.

To that effect I'm going to be switching to a Tumblelog. Which I think I have been a bit already with only posting short pieces here. This format will let me do so more easily.

So if your interested in hearing what I'm listening to, watching, playing, thinking about stay tuned.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo

How is this news?

John Ramsey and Beth Holloway Twitty Are Dating

Silas Partners, the place I work is hiring. We looking for a number of positions, so check out our careers page. To see if anything floats your boat.

If your thinking about applying send me a private message or comment so I can get in touch with you to speed your resume along.

Jim and my podcast is chugging along. We are up to episode #6. Head over there to check it out. And tell a friend about it.

It's been great fun recording the podcast, so if you're my friend, and you probably are because that's mostly who reads this, and you've been thinking about starting a podcast post your topic in the comments. I'm down for hosting a few more shows. Who knows I could be the Leo Laporte of the next generation.

I'm a fan of flash games, found this one on Digg.

Release! Cat with Bow Golf (ねこゆみごるふ)

Yeah I can't believe it either. Time printed an excerpt from Gore's new book The Assault on Reason (geeky aside here, Time can your CMS not figure out that <i> tags aren't really part of the title).

I would encourage you to read the excerpt. I'll start with what I don't agree with:

Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy.

I would agree that the Founders believed in the power of reasons, but this is not the central premise of our democracy. I would say, the rule of law and the protection of inalienable human right is the central premise of American democracy. The Founders trusted people to act in their own interests, not necessarily to be reasonable. Now for the part I couldn't agree with more:

The chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else. Many of them were at fund-raising events they now feel compelled to attend almost constantly in order to collect money—much of it from special interests—to buy 30-second TV commercials for their next re-election campaign. The Senate was silent because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much anymore—not to the other Senators, who are almost never present when their colleagues speak, and certainly not to the voters, because the news media seldom report on Senate speeches anymore.

and later:

The potential for manipulating mass opinions and feelings initially discovered by commercial advertisers is now being even more aggressively exploited by a new generation of media Machiavellis. The combination of ever more sophisticated public opinion sampling techniques and the increasing use of powerful computers to parse and subdivide the American people according to "psychographic" categories that identify their susceptibility to individually tailored appeals has further magnified the power of propagandistic electronic messaging that has created a harsh new reality for the functioning of our democracy.

I know I'm on the edges of fair use, so I won't quote anymore. I may not agree with some of Vice President Gore's conclusions, but I agree with his premise. Political discourse among the citizenry is dead, and news show shouters (sometimes politely referred to as "pundits"), a news media obbesed with celebrity for celebrity's sake and all of us who go along consuming - well everything - are culpable.

Having only read the excerpt I don't know if the rest of the book turns into a political polemic that paints the right as the architects of this or if it is more even handed laying the blame across party lines where it belongs. I can't imagine I can keep my red state status if I actually buy the book, so I guess I will wait till it comes to the LTSG library.

I've been reading The Pastor's Husband after Erin turned me on to it. It is interesting to read another dude perspective on being married into the Church. It also has inspired me to write a bit more about that experience.

I have a problem, there isn't an idea that passes through my head that I don't feel like I should share. Being a bit arrogant - ok maybe a lot arrogant - I think that most of my thoughts are worth sharing, you know to raise the level of discourse in the world.

That becomes a problem when I'm a participant in a study that Erin is leading. I know more than the average participant because I live with the leader. I know the opinions she has on these topics when no one else is around and she can say how she feels at that moment without reservation.

And as all people, Erin will adjust some of her speech and tone to the audience. Last night I called her out on that a bit, and that wasn't fair. It is a learning process for me to understand that if I'm going to go to things as a parishioner then I need to think like one too and "forget" about all the other things I know about Erin. Like she often forgets to take eye-shadow off so when she wakes up there is a line of it across her eyelids in a funny and cute way :)

Being a Pastor's husband is an experience, and I'm glad I'm learning the ropes this year so I don't screw it up when it might really matter.

I would have to raise my hand to that after today.

A simple mental mistake and 20,000 people see an email from IFCJ that looks like it is for Truth For Life. Basically I entered data into two fields incorrectly and suddenly big mistake Indy, big mistake.

I stayed an extra hour to clean up the mess. Well I won't be doing that again.

Let's all join our pathos as one, what's your biggest at work screw up.

Actually not Mexican radio, since my computer came from China and my microphone is made in the good old US of A. I am now a podcaster.

My college roomate Jim Neely and I are have put together a few episodes of a beer podcast called Your Next Beer. The idea is we talk for less than 15 minutes about a particular beer we think you might like. Then the next week we say if you liked last weeks beer, we think you might like this beer. It is a way for people who think they like beer to drink some new kinds of beer.

It has been a lot of fun to bring together the gadgets and software to record the podcast. I'll be doing the obligatory post later on. Until then head over to Your Next Beer we have two episodes up, subscribe listen and enjoy.