Author Archives: WD

Dangerous Media

Today we have a disturbing entry. Let me introduce you to the United Church of Christ. The UCC is really a grouping of churches, ranging from the very liberal to the modestly conservative. The idea of the the UCC is to articulate church, and Christ, as a place welcoming to all people. What “all people” really means is, gays, minorities, women, etc. So, since churches can tend to be rather stick in the mud places regarding social trends, the UCC seeks to embrace the results of the civil rights movements while keeping space for faith. The church ordained the first openly gay Christian minister back in 1972.

I find that the UCC is a brilliant example of a “uniting, not dividing” institution. And of course, this goal, uniting a deeply divided country has been all the talk of all the politicians – even W himself. Therefore one would assume that the UCC’s mission would be welcome on the public airwaves in the form of a commercial.

Not so.
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Oooh, you so special.

Okay, I seem to have things running pretty well here. I installed a SubCategories plugin which ended up leading me in an ugly direction. So, for the time being, there are no categories 🙂 But I’m going to look more deeply into the built-in system that MT offers. I’ve designed the blog to look very similar to its previous incarnation.

On the front page, there will be about 8 entries listed. To get to the individual post’s archive page, use either the menu at the left, or click on the Date in the “Posted by Matt at DATE” area at the bottom of the post. To the right of this is the Comments tag, which will show how many comments have been made. If no comments have been made and you click on it, you will be taken to the comment section of the post’s individual archive page. If comments have been made, you will be taken to that post’s first comment – simply scroll down to add your own comment after reading the others.

Regarding comments. I currently have them set up to allow anon posts. You can also sign in to a TypeKey identity for posting to this blog. To do so, click on the words “log in” where it says “If you have a TypeKey identity, you can sign in to use it here.” Hopefully the comments will be able to remain open like this. If the spam levels get too high, I’ll look in to other alternatives. I do recomend the TypeKey service, though.

I have disabled the TrackBack option, because I’m not sure I like that feature – I find it clutters and distracts from sites. Though if there are requests (doubtful) I can enable them.

The three unfinished areas are: Category System – Search – Comment Preview. If you use the search or comment preview function, you will see a default Movable Type template. This is happening because, as .cgi pages, I’m unable to use includes, which give the rest of the blog its look and feel. If anyone wants to help me out with this, I have plenty of Cadbury chocolate for you.

Lastly, I’ve enabled the Extended Entry feature. To test it out, click on the link “Continue reading ” below:
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Update

Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of updates for a while, but I’ve been moving the blog over to Movable Type. It’s a lot more customizable, but about 100X less user friendly than Blogger. So please bear with me as I work out the bugs of this new system.

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Pink Bananna Boat Dream Mellons

I don’t particularly like Paul Simon, and of his work, “You Can Call Me Al,” is not my favorite. However, there is one line from that song that I really like:

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard…

Which leads me to the larger dilemma. Sometimes I feel like a modernist born into a post-modern world. My generation, we have no real feature. We are not a war generation, and we have not radicaly re-defined social customs in any great way. We weren’t even responsible for the birthing of the computer age. Sure, we benefit from all these previous generations’ contributions, but I’m hard pressed to put my finger on our contribution. We don’t even have an acceptable name… I mean, the Y Generation? Generation Next??

I think more than ever, our lives are an assemblage of other realities. Note the constant co-opting of other clothing styles. It was first the flare jeans and “That 70’s Show,” and it is now pastel polo shrits and “That 80’s Show.” Not that I’m averse to such or other trends, but what fun would “That 00’s Show” be if it was just of us watching its predecessors?

But TV is only a convenient metaphor. Take race relations, multi-culturalism. I think we (people my age) have had these terms, as abstractions, mushed down our throats more than any previous generation. But we don’t really talk about them because we are afraid to offend. Thus the entire concept becomes self-defeating; the fears are left to fester, but the politicaly correct sugarcoating sells. What’s scary about all this is that instead of fostering an appreciation for difference, we’re really just opening up the familiar to new consumers. We can have gay themed TV shows in primetime because enough auto companies will pay for 30 second spots between scriped situations.

More than ever we are defined by what we own. And as guilty as I am in liking my things, I am beginning to fear that our great need of Platinum and Premium is just a new way of buying that mental space for our “whites only” water fountains. And we are ALL guilty. Egalitarianism is a great concept, but if our worth must be measured tangibly, I see little possibility for a future more prosperous to all.

I love the cartoon graveyard. In it we find identities that help constitute ours.
I hate the cartoon graveyard. It is nothing as a whole but a graveyard.