Tip of the day: if you can't work out what to do to stop an issue from recurring, you probably haven't found the root cause.
Someone posted that on Twitter recently.
Two issues that I find keep recurring are abortion and homosexuality.
Wherever I look in online forums people keep discussing them ad nauseam and ad bored-I-am.
American Evangelical Christians seem to be obsessed with the former, while Anglicans everywhere are obsessed with the latter.
And it is indeed quite probable that I have not found the root cause.
If anyone has found the root cause, please let me know.
31 July 2012
29 July 2012
Bling bling, it's bling they say
Blogger Clarissa recently wrote this account of the popularity of religious symbols among the Russian nouveau riche The Russian and His Gymnast | Clarissa's Blog
I was aware that something was going on 20 years ago, when our parish in Johannesburg was visited by Bishop Viktor of Podolsk. He was brought to South Africa by the Russian Chamber of Commerce to bless their new office in Johannesburg. I was mildly surprised that they would bring a bishop all that way for such a thing, and attributed it to inexperience. They weren't familiar with chambers of commerce after 70 years of Bolshevik rule, and were probably even less familiar with bishops. But they all seemed to be wearing securocrat suits just like their South African counterparts. The bling must have come later.
Hat-tip to my friend Plamen Sivov who provided the link the the picture, and also some more explanation:
So I’m snoozing on the beach, right? And I hear a man’s voice that says in Russian, “Come on, girls, stop climbing the railing. What will people think? That everybody walks on the footpath like normal people, and only the Russians have to act all weird? Remember that people see us as representatives of our country abroad.”You have to see it, though, to believe it.
Obviously, I was eager to see this defender of the image of Russians, so I opened my eyes. I saw a family: a man, a woman, and two precious little girls who were, indeed, trying to climb the railing. The man was a huge, burly Russian in minuscule shiny speedos that were smaller than even those worn by aging Italian gentlemen. He was also wearing a gold chain that was as thick as my finger. I have very small, dainty fingers, but still just imagine a chain like that.
Hanging from this chain there was a huge gold gymnast. A gymnast is a big golden cross that the Russian nouveau riche used to wear to show off their recently acquired wealth.
I was aware that something was going on 20 years ago, when our parish in Johannesburg was visited by Bishop Viktor of Podolsk. He was brought to South Africa by the Russian Chamber of Commerce to bless their new office in Johannesburg. I was mildly surprised that they would bring a bishop all that way for such a thing, and attributed it to inexperience. They weren't familiar with chambers of commerce after 70 years of Bolshevik rule, and were probably even less familiar with bishops. But they all seemed to be wearing securocrat suits just like their South African counterparts. The bling must have come later.Hat-tip to my friend Plamen Sivov who provided the link the the picture, and also some more explanation:
The whole gymnast thing comes from a popular Russian joke about the "new Russians", the low-culture nouvelle riche. The story goes like this: a "new Russian" goes to a jewelry store and asks for a golden cross that would fit his social status. The store keeper brings a big golden crucifix. The rich guy looks at it and says: Take down the gymnast, wrap up the rest.And here I was thinking that our tenderpreneurs were bad. They've got a long, long way to go to catch up with the Russians or the Bulgarians. Kitschy kitschy koo.
...and the gymnast association is probably related to the finishing position of any gymnastic performance - with hands stretched out and all. Those mafia-type guys from the joke (we have them in Bulgaria too) were known to be closely related to the sports clubs in the early years of post-communist transition.
27 July 2012
Extremely loud and incredibly close: book review
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran FoerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A rather strange book about searching, pain and loss.
Oskar Schell loses his father in nthe attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, and finds a key among his father's posessions and spends the next couple of years searching for the lock that it opens. His grandparents have also suffered loss, and lose each other, and the ability to communicate. Letters are written and never delivered, and the paper that fails to communicate are symbolised by the fluttering leaves of paper bursting out of the twin towers when the planes hit them, and fuel for the fires that follow.
What more can one say? One has to read it to see what it's about.
View all my reviews
26 July 2012
Bloated job titles and other examples of diseased language
There's an outfit called TGIF (Thank God It's Friday, in case you didn't know) that holds weekly Christian discussion meetings in the Seattle Coffee Shop Brooklyn Mall at 6:00 am on Fridays. I've been to a few of them when the topic has interested me, and I get the weekly notices of topics to see whether they may be of interest. This week's notice had some comments on inflated job titles, which I thought were worth sharing:
And while we were on holiday recently we stopped for lunch at Maxi's Cafe in Bethal in Mpumalanga, and there we saw this sign.
I used to know that as the "greengrocer's apostrophe", but Maxi's isn't a greengrocer.
Oh well, at least I'm not seeing "a waist of time" as much as I used to see it online in the early 1990s, so some things are improving.
As the saying went in the early 1990s, "Put knot yore trussed inn spell chequers."
Job title inflation: It started when the guy who fixed my washing machine introduced himself as the Maintenance Engineer, only to be trumped by the plumber who became a Drain Surgeon. Run-of-the-mill assistants are now Facilities Administrators, 1-person organisations are headed by CEOs or Presidents, and Churchianity has seen a few (self-appointed?) Apostles of Faith and Anointed Prophets. The herbalists whose pamphlets you get given at the traffic lights are all "Dr" or "Prof", except for the one who promotes himself as "Almighty Healer, Spirit from the Mountain and the Head of all Healers Herbalists in Africa" (sic).While on the topic of language and usage, I also recently saw this on Facebook:
Job title stuffing has resulted in descriptors like Chief Executive Twitterer, Manager of Deep Web Research, Central Interactions Architect, Lifestyle Design Coach, Person-Centred Transition Facilitator, Global Troubleshooter, Head of Knowledge Creation, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner, and Dynamic Paradigm Orchestrator. Soon, movers and shakers might become (respectively) Location Change Management Specialists and Arthymic Oscillation Technicians. [1]
And while we were on holiday recently we stopped for lunch at Maxi's Cafe in Bethal in Mpumalanga, and there we saw this sign.
I used to know that as the "greengrocer's apostrophe", but Maxi's isn't a greengrocer.Oh well, at least I'm not seeing "a waist of time" as much as I used to see it online in the early 1990s, so some things are improving.
As the saying went in the early 1990s, "Put knot yore trussed inn spell chequers."
16 July 2012
Weird words: closure
I first learnt the meaning of the word "closure" as a student, in the context of student debates. When something was being discussed in a formal meeting, and a lot of people were repeating a lot of similar points, someone would say "I move closure", and the chairman/speaker could put it to an immediate vote. If it was passed the chairman asked all those who wished to speak to raise their hands, and made a not of their names, and then no one else was allowed to speak. Closure meant that debate was closed.
More recently a new meaning has appeared.
When someone dies unexpectedly, and in an newsworthy manner, journalists ask how their family or friends how they feel, and they usually say, "We just want closure."
This is duly reported by the media, and everyone seems to be satisfied.
If the bodies of those who were disappeared by the police during the apartheid era are recovered and reburied, journalists ask their family and friends how they feel, and they say "Now we have closure."
This, too, is duly reported by the media, and everyone is satisfied.
I was never quite sure what this closure was, but clearly it was something people had or did not have when someone else had died.
Now here's a new datum, which sets the cat among the pigeons: By Reader Request: Closure | Clarissa's Blog: A reader asked the following question:
And Blogger Clarissa replies that "closure" is indeed an American phenomenon, and is unknown in Russian or Ukrainian culture.
That leaves me wondering whether Ukrainian funerals are seen as an opportunity to tell the "dear departed" to "piss off"?
More recently a new meaning has appeared.
When someone dies unexpectedly, and in an newsworthy manner, journalists ask how their family or friends how they feel, and they usually say, "We just want closure."
This is duly reported by the media, and everyone seems to be satisfied.
If the bodies of those who were disappeared by the police during the apartheid era are recovered and reburied, journalists ask their family and friends how they feel, and they say "Now we have closure."
This, too, is duly reported by the media, and everyone is satisfied.
I was never quite sure what this closure was, but clearly it was something people had or did not have when someone else had died.
Now here's a new datum, which sets the cat among the pigeons: By Reader Request: Closure | Clarissa's Blog: A reader asked the following question:
Is closure an American phenomenon? Do other cultures just say “piss off” and go on their merry ways?
And Blogger Clarissa replies that "closure" is indeed an American phenomenon, and is unknown in Russian or Ukrainian culture.
That leaves me wondering whether Ukrainian funerals are seen as an opportunity to tell the "dear departed" to "piss off"?
12 July 2012
Liberalism and old liberals revisited
Yesterday, while on holiday in Pietermaritzburg, we visited old friends Colin and Mary Gardner, whom we had not seen for a long time, and one of the things we talked about was a proposal by Paul Trewhela for a new history of the Liberal Party of South Africa, and also Paul Trewhela's notion that the Liberal Party ought to have gone underground in 1968, instead of disbanding when the Improper Interference Act became law.
(the picture shows Val Hayes, Colin & Mary Gardner)
I've blogged about Paul Trewhela's proposals before, so I won't repeat everything that I said there, but Colin Gardner came up with a new slant on it. He was a member of the national executive of the Liberal Party at the time the decision was made to disband, and he said that they had considered ignoring the Improper Interference Act (which prohibited multiracial political parties) and just carry on as if nothing had happened, and decided not to. One of the reasons for that, that I had not been aware of, was that some Liberal lawyers, who were in touch with some National Party lawyers, said that that was what the government was expecting, and if it happened, they would declare the Liberal Party a "white" party, and prosecute the black members for contravening the Improper Interference Act. Basing political decisions on what was, in effect, idle gossip over tea at a Law Society meeting, or something similar, may seems strange, but that was one way of gaining intelligence of the intentions of the government.
And as for Paul Trewhela's idea, which he still seems to be pushing, that the Liberal Party ought to have, or even could have, gone underground, it would have been impossible, for reasons I have already noted (Notes from underground: A liberal underground in South Africa), namely that, having operated openly and publicly for 15 years, all active Liberals were known to the SB (Security Police), and any such activity would have been reported to them immediately by their izimpimpi.
Colin Gardner also remarked that one of the things that followed the passing of the Improper Interference Act, though not necessarily caused by it, was the rise of Black Consciousness. At first the National Party government welcomed BC, because they saw it as their policies bearing fruit, but it didn't take them long to realise that it was independent of their control, and not at all what they had in mind by "own affairs". Steve Biko's declaration of himself as a "non-nonracialist" could initially be mistaken for what the National Party government had in mind when it passed the Improper Interference Act, but eventually they learned that it wasn't.
Colin also thought that Steve Biko was using "non-nonracialism" as a tactic, and would, if he had lived, become nonracialist, though whether he or his ideals would have survived in the current South African political climate might be questionable.
Steve Biko didn't have a good word for what he called "white liberals" (which continues to be a swear word in South Africa), but I suspect that what he had in mind when he used the term "liberal" was Nusas (the National Union of South African Students), rather than the Liberal Party. And, as have pointed out in Notes from underground: A new history of the Liberal Party?, the word "liberal" is still misused, and still misunderstood, as much as, if not more than, it was 45-50 years ago.
(the picture shows Val Hayes, Colin & Mary Gardner)
I've blogged about Paul Trewhela's proposals before, so I won't repeat everything that I said there, but Colin Gardner came up with a new slant on it. He was a member of the national executive of the Liberal Party at the time the decision was made to disband, and he said that they had considered ignoring the Improper Interference Act (which prohibited multiracial political parties) and just carry on as if nothing had happened, and decided not to. One of the reasons for that, that I had not been aware of, was that some Liberal lawyers, who were in touch with some National Party lawyers, said that that was what the government was expecting, and if it happened, they would declare the Liberal Party a "white" party, and prosecute the black members for contravening the Improper Interference Act. Basing political decisions on what was, in effect, idle gossip over tea at a Law Society meeting, or something similar, may seems strange, but that was one way of gaining intelligence of the intentions of the government.
And as for Paul Trewhela's idea, which he still seems to be pushing, that the Liberal Party ought to have, or even could have, gone underground, it would have been impossible, for reasons I have already noted (Notes from underground: A liberal underground in South Africa), namely that, having operated openly and publicly for 15 years, all active Liberals were known to the SB (Security Police), and any such activity would have been reported to them immediately by their izimpimpi.
Colin Gardner also remarked that one of the things that followed the passing of the Improper Interference Act, though not necessarily caused by it, was the rise of Black Consciousness. At first the National Party government welcomed BC, because they saw it as their policies bearing fruit, but it didn't take them long to realise that it was independent of their control, and not at all what they had in mind by "own affairs". Steve Biko's declaration of himself as a "non-nonracialist" could initially be mistaken for what the National Party government had in mind when it passed the Improper Interference Act, but eventually they learned that it wasn't.
Colin also thought that Steve Biko was using "non-nonracialism" as a tactic, and would, if he had lived, become nonracialist, though whether he or his ideals would have survived in the current South African political climate might be questionable.
Steve Biko didn't have a good word for what he called "white liberals" (which continues to be a swear word in South Africa), but I suspect that what he had in mind when he used the term "liberal" was Nusas (the National Union of South African Students), rather than the Liberal Party. And, as have pointed out in Notes from underground: A new history of the Liberal Party?, the word "liberal" is still misused, and still misunderstood, as much as, if not more than, it was 45-50 years ago.
04 July 2012
Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com
About 10 days ago Facebook showed its utter contempt for its users by changing their e-mail addresses without warning, and without even telling them afterwards. Perhaps it's time to jump ship. Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com
OK, I've changed my bogus e-mail address back to my real one, but most of my friends haven't, because most of them probably don't even know that Facebook has changed their addresses.
So Facebook have destroyed their own most usefulm function.
But it's worse than that, they've changed the address books on lots of people's mobile phones, if they were linked to Facebook, and as a result people are losing important e-mail's because Facebook have hijacked their address books. Perhaps that should be the subject of a class action lawsuit, sueing Facebook for interfering with people's mail.
The Facebook Email Fiasco Might Be Worse Than We Thought (Updated)
So maybe it's time to bail out of Facebook.
What is the alternative?
Well there are things like Linked-in, and Google+, and for the academically incline, academia.edu but perhaps it's time for Google to dust off their little-known and well-hidden alternative to Facebook: Orkut.
They don't show it any more in the Google menus.They don't publicise it at all, but it has thousands of users in Latin America and Asia, where it has been very popular.
So how about joining Orkut now, and then leaving messages on Facebook asking all your Facebook friends to meet you there?
I'll be visiting Facebook a lot less frequently now, but I'll still let my Twitter tweets be posted on Facebook -- I just won't see many comments that people make on Facebook.
After causing a raucous week by changing users' listed email addresses to ones ending in @facebook.com, Facebook's switch is causing yet another embarrassment for the company and problem for many users.One of the things that got me using Facebook was that it enabled me to keep in touch or get in touch with old friends by finding their conact information, and they could get in touch with me by finding my e-mail address. But Facebook went and destroyed that functionality by replacing my real e-mail address with a bogus one, because the @facebook.com address that they replaced it with doesn't even work. I've sent a few test e-mails to it, and none of them have shown up on Facebook.
The email switch has gone beyond the walls of Facebook, according to various users, who are saying that the change is affecting the emails listed in their contact books.
Across the Web, people are saying the emails listed for many of their contacts in their address books have been replaced by @facebook.com emails.
OK, I've changed my bogus e-mail address back to my real one, but most of my friends haven't, because most of them probably don't even know that Facebook has changed their addresses.
So Facebook have destroyed their own most usefulm function.
But it's worse than that, they've changed the address books on lots of people's mobile phones, if they were linked to Facebook, and as a result people are losing important e-mail's because Facebook have hijacked their address books. Perhaps that should be the subject of a class action lawsuit, sueing Facebook for interfering with people's mail.
The Facebook Email Fiasco Might Be Worse Than We Thought (Updated)
CNET reports a multitude of user complaints after the big obnoxious switch-over, citing claims that Facebook is "changing their address books while intercepting and losing unknown amounts of e-mail." Some Facebookers are seeing messages (inadvertently) sent to their @facebook accounts vanishing into nothing, while others have noticed every email address in their phone overwritten by Facebook:
So maybe it's time to bail out of Facebook.
What is the alternative?
Well there are things like Linked-in, and Google+, and for the academically incline, academia.edu but perhaps it's time for Google to dust off their little-known and well-hidden alternative to Facebook: Orkut.
They don't show it any more in the Google menus.They don't publicise it at all, but it has thousands of users in Latin America and Asia, where it has been very popular.
So how about joining Orkut now, and then leaving messages on Facebook asking all your Facebook friends to meet you there?
I'll be visiting Facebook a lot less frequently now, but I'll still let my Twitter tweets be posted on Facebook -- I just won't see many comments that people make on Facebook.
30 June 2012
What's trending on Twitter?
This morning I noticed that the "trending" box on Twitter had changed, and was now "tailored" for me, and these were, preseumably according to whatever algorithm they are using, the trends that I would be interested in watching:
Most of those meant nothing to me, so I changed it back to "South Africa, Johannesburg", which is what it was before.
I wonder what the difference is.
The one "tailored" for me lacks #RASA but includes Bar9, neither of which mean anything to me. I have heard of Tom Cruise, but have little interest in him, and have heard of MNet, but have little interest in that either.
Perhaps I'm just too out of touch with popular culture, even when its especially "tailored" for me.
Am I missing anything important?
Johannesburg trends
· ChangeI wonder what the difference is.
The one "tailored" for me lacks #RASA but includes Bar9, neither of which mean anything to me. I have heard of Tom Cruise, but have little interest in him, and have heard of MNet, but have little interest in that either.
Perhaps I'm just too out of touch with popular culture, even when its especially "tailored" for me.
Am I missing anything important?
28 June 2012
Blog and browser popularity
A couple of months ago I read in a news report that Chrome had overtaken Firefox and Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser. Not among readers of this blog, it hasn't!
Here are the latest stats for web page browsers used to view this blog:
A couple of months ago I also noticed a surprising increase in the number of readers of this blog apparently coming from Ukraine.
I thought that there might have been one or two posts that appealed to Ukrainian readers, but no, the trend has continued.
At first I thought it might be because I sometimes blog about the Orthodox Church, and there are Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia, but I actually blog far more about the Orthodox Church on my other blog, Khanya, which had only five Ukrainian reader in the last month -- there were many more from other countries with substantial numbers of Orthodox Christians, such as Greece, Bulgaria. Serbia and Russia.
I haven't seen any comments from anyone from Ukraine to say why they like reading this blog rather than the other.
Or perhaps Blogger's statistics are just screwed up.
Here are the latest stats for web page browsers used to view this blog:
A couple of months ago I also noticed a surprising increase in the number of readers of this blog apparently coming from Ukraine.I thought that there might have been one or two posts that appealed to Ukrainian readers, but no, the trend has continued.
At first I thought it might be because I sometimes blog about the Orthodox Church, and there are Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia, but I actually blog far more about the Orthodox Church on my other blog, Khanya, which had only five Ukrainian reader in the last month -- there were many more from other countries with substantial numbers of Orthodox Christians, such as Greece, Bulgaria. Serbia and Russia.
Visitors to Khanya blog for 30 days ending 2012-06-28
I haven't seen any comments from anyone from Ukraine to say why they like reading this blog rather than the other.
Or perhaps Blogger's statistics are just screwed up.
27 June 2012
Ridiculous beliefs
I came across this when someone retweeted it on Twitter, with the comment "Ridiculous beliefs".I agree.
The problem is, though, that I cannot recall ever meeting anyone who actually believes that.
Can you call something a "belief" if no one believes it?
If any member of the Orthodox Church said they believed such things, they would, sooner or later, be told that they were heretical. The whole thing is heretical, and every single clause is heretical.
The Roman Catholic Church, I should think, would have a similar reaction. I don't know if they still have the Inquisition, but they'd revive it pretty quickly if lots of people started saying that they believed that stuff.
Protestants?
Well, it's a bit harder to say with Protestants , because there are so many different varieties of Protestantism that it is conceivable that there is some sect, somewhere out there, that might believe one or more of those things. But, as I said, I haven't actually met anyone who believes them.
But, in one sense, that would be beside the point. It's obviously a caricature, and it's not meant to represent any beliefs that anyone actually holds.
So what is it meant to represent?
What is it supposed to communicate, about what, and to whom?
Perhaps we could try to deconstruct it.
Here are some of my attempts at deconstruction. If anyone can come up with other ideas, please add them in the comments.
1. My first thought is that it is a piece of "feel good" propaganda by militant atheists for militant atheists. By caricaturing Christian beliefs, and presenting them as ridiculous, they can feel smug and superior when comparing themselves with Christians. So it enables them to feel good about themselves. Some may be aware that it is a caricature, others may not, but that doesn't matter much, because the main point is to feel superior.
2. The second one is a little more sinister. This is that it is propaganda by by militant atheists for ordinary don't care atheists, for agnostics, for anyone who is not a Christian, and who is ignorant about Christianity, with the aim of getting them to reject Christianity because they reject a caricature. It is possibly calculated to stir up hatred for Christians. In other words, it is a caricature verging on "hate speech".
But in deconstructing it, we need to go a bit deeper than that.
Where did the caricature come from? What is its source?
A friend of mine, now a retired Anglican bishop, once wrote the following about Christian mission:
The Church exists for mission, not merely by words, but by representing Christ. Its work is not to convert, that is the Holy Spirit's work; ours is to preach (Mark 16:15). `Think not of the harvest, but only of proper sowing.' We bear witness, whether they hear or whether they forbear' (Ezekiel 2:5 etc.). Our task, and it is quite sufficient to keep us going without bothering about the consequences, is to make sure that if people reject Christ, they reject Christ and not a caricature of him, and if they accept him, that they accept Christ and not a caricature. If they reject, we remember that Christ got the same treatment - in fact half our problem is that we require something better than the success of Christ. We are not to cast pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6) - we are not to try to `fix up' people's salvation against their will; `to try to force the word on the world by hook or by crook is to make the living word of God into a mere idea, and the world would be perfectly justified in refusing to listen to an idea which did not appeal to it'. This is the way we seek Christ's success. The Church is not to be like a mighty army, pressing on regardless; it is more like a bloody doormat - a phrase which could even fit the Master of the Church himself, for it is only by the cross and precious blood of Christ that we are what we are, and he himself is the way on which we must tramp and maybe wipe our boots as we come to the Father (John 14:6). This is the kind of Saviour we represent.
And I suggest that in many ways the caricature has come from Christians themselves, from Christians who have done some of the things suggested in the paragraph I quoted -- tried to fix up people's salvation against their will, tried to make the living word of God into a mere idea, tried to present a caricature of Christ rather than Christ himself.
And that is in fact the original sin, because it goes back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve presented a caricature of God to the snake.
God said to Adam and Eve that they could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden but one. And the snake asks what God said, and Eve said that God had told them not to eat from that tree, but also not to touch it. That is an extensive exaggeration of what God said. An ogre God sounds more impressive than the true God. And right up till now there have been Christians who have presented an ogre God.
I was once at a church youth group where an evangelist was speaking. At the time there were some popular bumper stickers on cars that had a picture of a smiley face, and the legend, "Smile, God loves you."
The evangelist denounced these in no uncertain terms.
"That's wrong," he said. "God doesn't love you, he is very angry with you because you're a sinner. He was so angry that he killed His Son."
That was presenting an ogre God, a caricature. And one doesn't have to take the caricature a whole lot further to get to the statement, in the picture above, "I will kill myself as a sacrifice to myself."
So I would say that if atheists want to reject Christ, then it is better that they reject Christ rather than that they reject a caricature of him, or even accept a caricature of him.
But it is much more important that Christians should not present a caricature in the first place.
25 June 2012
Weird requests for blog guest posts
Over the last few weeks I've been inundated with weird requests from people offering to write guest posts on my blogs. The following is typical of these requests:
So I replied to a couple of these reminders, and asked for a sample of their proposed guest posts, and there was no response to that at all.
Has any one else been getting these offers?
Why would people offer to write a guest post, then remind you of the offer, and then when you take them up on the offer and ask to see the guest post, just not respond?
Are these people who have so much time on their hands that they have nothing better to do than waste other people's time be generating needless correspondence?
Or are they just harvesting e-mail addresses for the purpose of spamming? If that's the case, it seems a lot of trouble to go to -- to insert the name of the blog and all.
Or is it some kind of hidden scam, like the messages I used to get a year or so ago inviting me to a conference in some US city and in Dakar, Senegal?
After getting several of those, I tried to find more about what it was about by sending enquiries asking for further information about these conferences, but none was forthcoming. I assume that the conferences were all bogus, but I wonder why someone would go to the bother of sending out invitations to bogus conferences. They don't seem to be looking for any kind of response, because they never respond to the responses.
Another similar thing seemed to come from one persistent guy who called himself or herself Laure Norman. He said he had important information for me. Eventually I asked what the important information was, and the reply was that the important information was that there was important information. In the end I set up my e-mail program to simply bounce back anything received from that source, and I now see that my ISP (whose addresses this "Laure Norman" impersonated) is now marking it as spam at the server, so it never reaches me.
What puzzles me about all this, though, is what's in it for the people who do it. They're not asking for money, so there is no obvious scam involved. Does it give them some kind of satisfaction to waste other people's time and bandwidth?
I'm getting in touch with you because I'm interested in writing an articleTo begin with I just deleted them, but then they started sending me reminders, and asking for my response.
for your blog. I came across your blog post khanya.wordpress.com while
writing for a website on hospitality management - specifically the field's
trend towards sustainability design. During my research, I've found that
incorporating green aspects to hotels, restaurants, and other service
industries has not only contributed to a healthier planet but in some
cases increased revenues.
Please let me know if you'd be interested in an article about both the
design and/or business aspects of sustainable design. Thanks, and I look
forward to hearing from you soon.
So I replied to a couple of these reminders, and asked for a sample of their proposed guest posts, and there was no response to that at all.
Has any one else been getting these offers?
Why would people offer to write a guest post, then remind you of the offer, and then when you take them up on the offer and ask to see the guest post, just not respond?
Are these people who have so much time on their hands that they have nothing better to do than waste other people's time be generating needless correspondence?
Or are they just harvesting e-mail addresses for the purpose of spamming? If that's the case, it seems a lot of trouble to go to -- to insert the name of the blog and all.
Or is it some kind of hidden scam, like the messages I used to get a year or so ago inviting me to a conference in some US city and in Dakar, Senegal?
After getting several of those, I tried to find more about what it was about by sending enquiries asking for further information about these conferences, but none was forthcoming. I assume that the conferences were all bogus, but I wonder why someone would go to the bother of sending out invitations to bogus conferences. They don't seem to be looking for any kind of response, because they never respond to the responses.
Another similar thing seemed to come from one persistent guy who called himself or herself Laure Norman. He said he had important information for me. Eventually I asked what the important information was, and the reply was that the important information was that there was important information. In the end I set up my e-mail program to simply bounce back anything received from that source, and I now see that my ISP (whose addresses this "Laure Norman" impersonated) is now marking it as spam at the server, so it never reaches me.
What puzzles me about all this, though, is what's in it for the people who do it. They're not asking for money, so there is no obvious scam involved. Does it give them some kind of satisfaction to waste other people's time and bandwidth?
24 June 2012
Luddite theology
Last week I was at the Joint Conference of academic societies in the field of Religion and Theology, and I was struck by the almost complete absence of comment on the conference in social media, or in other electronic forums.
Only last year one of those learned societies, the Southern African Missiological Society (SAMS) held its annual congress in Pretoria, and there was a continual stream of tweets on Twitter with the #SAMS2011 hashtag. WiFi was available at the venue (a local church hall) to facilitate this, and there was even a screen set up to show the Twitter stream as it was occurring.
This year, in a far bigger conference, with 16 different societies participating, held on a university campus, there was almost no electronic sharing with those unable to attend. Though there was a good WiFi network available on the campus, conference participants were not given access to it, even though the conference was very expensive to attend. So the most we could manage during the conference was the occasional tweet from a cell phone, and the occasional picture on Facebook (and I still haven't managed to work out how to make the cell phone do these tricks, so I was never sure what was posted or not). But as far as I could see only three people tweeted using the #JCRT2012 hashtag, and one of those tweets was simply a remark that I seemed to be the only one tweeting on the conference.
Does this indicate that academics in the field of religion and theology have gone off the use of digital technology, and that SAMS 2011 was merely a flash in the pan, an incongruous exception?
There were digital projectors in all the venues where papers were presented, but I didn't use one for my paper because I didn't know beforehand what provision would be made for that, and in many cases when they were used they were distracting, as there was much fiddling with the equipment, and sometimes the wrong slide was shown, with interruptions while the right one was found, and where the equipment was used it was often only to show the text of the paper anyway.
While the lack of WiFi can be blamed on the organisers of the conference, I'm not sure that the blame lies entirely with them. If there was access, would anyone have used it?
Abstracts of all the papers being read were made available to conference participants beforehand, and I thought that that might be an opportunity of sharing what was being said and what was happening with those unable to attend. I posted a few of the abstracts in some electronic forums in the hope that they might elicit some comments or questions, but the response was zero. Perhaps that is an indication that academics in the field of religion and theology are technological luddites, and are simply not interested in using electronic media to communicate, or perhaps it was because they thought that the quality of the papers, as reflected in the abstracts, was so poor that they weren't worth reading, much less commenting on. I posted several abstracts in the missiological forum, since missiology is my field, but I also posted some in the general religion forum, the new religious movements forum, and the African Independent Churches forum. There didn't seem to be any responses in any of them.
I don't think Twitter is the best medium for commenting on or sharing what is happening at an academic conference. I think live blogging is better, as it can give more idea of the content, but without WiFi live blogging is not an option, and so we had to make do with Twitter, but it seems that most people didn't even use that.
I wonder if anyone will even read this!
I suggest that the next joint conference (in three years' time) take the form of a bosberaad, where the venue will be cheaper, with no electricity, and people can read their papers by the light of paraffin lamps.
Only last year one of those learned societies, the Southern African Missiological Society (SAMS) held its annual congress in Pretoria, and there was a continual stream of tweets on Twitter with the #SAMS2011 hashtag. WiFi was available at the venue (a local church hall) to facilitate this, and there was even a screen set up to show the Twitter stream as it was occurring.
This year, in a far bigger conference, with 16 different societies participating, held on a university campus, there was almost no electronic sharing with those unable to attend. Though there was a good WiFi network available on the campus, conference participants were not given access to it, even though the conference was very expensive to attend. So the most we could manage during the conference was the occasional tweet from a cell phone, and the occasional picture on Facebook (and I still haven't managed to work out how to make the cell phone do these tricks, so I was never sure what was posted or not). But as far as I could see only three people tweeted using the #JCRT2012 hashtag, and one of those tweets was simply a remark that I seemed to be the only one tweeting on the conference.Does this indicate that academics in the field of religion and theology have gone off the use of digital technology, and that SAMS 2011 was merely a flash in the pan, an incongruous exception?
There were digital projectors in all the venues where papers were presented, but I didn't use one for my paper because I didn't know beforehand what provision would be made for that, and in many cases when they were used they were distracting, as there was much fiddling with the equipment, and sometimes the wrong slide was shown, with interruptions while the right one was found, and where the equipment was used it was often only to show the text of the paper anyway.
While the lack of WiFi can be blamed on the organisers of the conference, I'm not sure that the blame lies entirely with them. If there was access, would anyone have used it?
Abstracts of all the papers being read were made available to conference participants beforehand, and I thought that that might be an opportunity of sharing what was being said and what was happening with those unable to attend. I posted a few of the abstracts in some electronic forums in the hope that they might elicit some comments or questions, but the response was zero. Perhaps that is an indication that academics in the field of religion and theology are technological luddites, and are simply not interested in using electronic media to communicate, or perhaps it was because they thought that the quality of the papers, as reflected in the abstracts, was so poor that they weren't worth reading, much less commenting on. I posted several abstracts in the missiological forum, since missiology is my field, but I also posted some in the general religion forum, the new religious movements forum, and the African Independent Churches forum. There didn't seem to be any responses in any of them.
I don't think Twitter is the best medium for commenting on or sharing what is happening at an academic conference. I think live blogging is better, as it can give more idea of the content, but without WiFi live blogging is not an option, and so we had to make do with Twitter, but it seems that most people didn't even use that.
I wonder if anyone will even read this!
I suggest that the next joint conference (in three years' time) take the form of a bosberaad, where the venue will be cheaper, with no electricity, and people can read their papers by the light of paraffin lamps.
13 June 2012
Western Media-Appointed Good Guys Strike Again
In the civil war going on in Syria, the Western media have appointed the rebels against the Assad regime as the good guys, and woe to those who disagree with their judgement. Among those who disagree are probably most of the Christians in Syria, who fear what will happen to them if the rebels take over.
The appointment of the good guys by the western media is not merely a wrong opinion, they seem to have got the facts wrong as well. Western intervention in Libya's civil war last year did not bring good results, and the same thing seems to be happening in Syria as well.
The Pittsford Perennialist: Western Media-Appointed Good Guys Strike Again:
Not that the Assad regime are the good guys. But while it is desirable to get rid of a bad government, it is better to replace it with something better rather than something worse.
As my blogging friend The Pittsford Perennialist also points out
For the other side of the story, see Syrian Christians fear Islamist rule if Assad goes.
Russian Church Opposes Syrian Intervention - NYTimes.com:
In Syria, as in Libya, the killing has been, and is being done by both sides. What is needed is not military intervention, but peacemaking intervention.
The appointment of the good guys by the western media is not merely a wrong opinion, they seem to have got the facts wrong as well. Western intervention in Libya's civil war last year did not bring good results, and the same thing seems to be happening in Syria as well.
The Pittsford Perennialist: Western Media-Appointed Good Guys Strike Again:
If you were paying attention you would not be surprised about these "attacks on the people of Tawargha [that] are so severe that the United Nations has labeled them 'war crimes'" — After Libya's War, Acts Of Vengeance.
Now, if the official "bad guys" had been accused of this, this "one more fact about the town that was destroyed" would not have been buried at the end of the article: "In this overwhelmingly Arab nation, most of Tawargha's population was black." No, if the actors were reversed, that bit would be front and center, and the phrase "ethnic cleansing" would have rightly been used in the headline.
Not that the Assad regime are the good guys. But while it is desirable to get rid of a bad government, it is better to replace it with something better rather than something worse.
As my blogging friend The Pittsford Perennialist also points out
Likewise, news that "the infamous Houla massacre in Syria, which the US and NATO hoped would be the casus belli for their planned invasion, was in fact carried out by rebel forces" should come of no surprise — Implosion of The Houla Massacre Story — Is Anyone Paying Attention?
For the other side of the story, see Syrian Christians fear Islamist rule if Assad goes.
Russian Church Opposes Syrian Intervention - NYTimes.com:
It is clear by now that Russia’s government has dug in against outside intervention in Syria, its longtime partner and last firm foothold in the Middle East. Less well known is the position taken by the Russian Orthodox Church, which fears that Christian minorities, many of them Orthodox, will be swept away by a wave of Islamic fundamentalism unleashed by the Arab Spring.The western media have criticised the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church for their non-interventionist approach, and accuse them of sitting idly by and failing to act to "stop the killing". But the question is, who is doing the killing?
In his warnings, Patriarch Kirill I invokes Bolshevik persecution still fresh in the Russian imagination, writing of “the carcasses of defiled churches still remaining in our country.”
In Syria, as in Libya, the killing has been, and is being done by both sides. What is needed is not military intervention, but peacemaking intervention.
The Sweet-Smelling Jasmine
The Sweet Smelling Jasmine by Jenny HobbsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A middle-aged suburban housewife, trapped in a marriage that has lost its lustre, meets a friend she had known as a teenager in a sugar mill town on the Natal coast, where she had gone to stay with her sister and brother-in-law after her father had died. Her friend has become a writer, and encourages her to write the story of the long-ago summer when they first met, which had begun with new friendships, her first love, and yet ended in horror, violence and death. Though the book is full of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, it is also an enthralling story about growing up in the 1950s, with teenage fears and anxieties, joys and embarassments.
View all my reviews
06 June 2012
Six pictures worth 60000 words
I came across this little cartoon strip on Facebook, and "shared" it there, but I think it deserves more than that. It's about black-white relations in the USA, but is in many ways just as applicable to South Africa.
And it reminds me of an American trade union song I learnt many years ago (sung to the tune of The battle hymn of the republic also known as John Brown's body)
It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the factories, endless miles of railroad laid
Now we stand outcast and starving mid the wonders we have made
But union makes us strong.
Solidarity for ever!
Solidarity for ever!
Solidarity for ever!
The union makes us strong.
Viva Vavi!
And it reminds me of an American trade union song I learnt many years ago (sung to the tune of The battle hymn of the republic also known as John Brown's body)
It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the factories, endless miles of railroad laid
Now we stand outcast and starving mid the wonders we have made
But union makes us strong.
Solidarity for ever!
Solidarity for ever!
Solidarity for ever!
The union makes us strong.
Viva Vavi!
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