It’s official now: I am bought and sold. You’ve no doubt noticed the ads on the top of the page. If I’m lucky, the revenue will generate enough money to fund my shameful cashew addiction.
But look at the bright side. Through the magic of Google Adsense, evangelicals are advertising on MyIrony! Last night I saw an ad for dating sexy Baptists in your area. (Free registration, even.) And today one for Liberty University.
The ads are supposed to be content sensitive, so they change a bit depending on which story you’ve clicked on. However, my top post for comments doesn’t advertise Arby’s yet. Everything in due time.
Oh, and click on the ads. Lots of them. I eat a lot of cashews. And you could be dating a sexy Baptist just around the corner, you lucky devil.
Not the sort of thing I need to hear six months after buying my first house. But this Washington Monthly article (long) argues that we’re in for a downturn that could bring the entire economy down with it. Worse, there’s an ethics component:
In most markets, buyers and sellers rely on independent experts to bring sanity to prices. In the stock markets during the 1990s, that role had traditionally been played by stock analysts, whose opinions were famously bought off by the investment banks they worked for. Something similar has happened to appraisers, the independent contractors banks hire to determine the worth of a home for the purposes of a mortgage loan. In a recent survey conducted by the October Research Group, more than half of all appraisers said that they personally felt pressured to overstate loans, and “nearly all” said they knew a colleague who had actually done so. The pressure to inflate, October’s publisher Joe Casa said, “is much worse now than it’s ever been.” Industry analysts have estimated that between 15 and 30 percent of houses nationally are over-valued.
That internet file sharing harms musicians is arguable, according to a recent academic analysis. If economic harm is taken out of the question, the notion of harm has to go to an abstract notion of intellectual property and copyright infringement. I say it’s an abstract notion, but perhaps I should say legal.
What I’d like to know is if there is any defense of the ethics of intellectual property and copyright ethics in relation to file sharing that doesn’t involve any legal arguments at all. “Illegal” doesn’t necessarily equal “unethical.” After all, look at civil disobedience. (As an aside, you can’t argue that file sharing is plagiarism—no one is claiming someone else’s work as their own. ) Click to continue reading “Digital ethics”
A while back, Unitarian Universalist president Bill Sinkford called for UUs to reclaim a “vocabulary of reverence.” Starr King seminary president Rebecca Ann Parker has responded (some time later) to Sinkford’s call. (Hat tip to Philocrites for the news.) What follows are some off-the-cuff reflections.
Click to continue reading “Reclaiming a “vocabulary of reverence””
Driving on the highway the other day, I noticed the state lottery was up to some ungodly amount again. I found myself asking what I would do if I won.
If I became suddenly rich–I have little hope of becoming gradually rich–I would consider it my Christian duty to become an eccentric rich man. The first move in my path to eccentricity would be to hire a research assistant to help me compile a personally published book that I would give to friend and family as a stock gift. (My parents have friends who give crock pots for occasions small and large.) This book would be leather bound, with gold leaf edging. A cloth bookmark would be attached to the binding, like a nice study bible. The first page of the book would be left blank so I could stamp, in green ink, “On the occasion of ____________. Your friend in ________,” I’d fill in the occasion, the deity and add my signature in my best red Sharpie. Typical occasions for giving my little leather book would include birthdays, births, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, graduations, engagements, weddings, divorces, anniversaries and funerals. The book would be delivered gift wrapped in unmatching paper and bow.
Compiling the contents of the book would be my research assistant’s primary responsibility (besides wearing a kilt, thongs, and a cowboy hat). Hardly a morning goes by when I don’t find myself gufawing, “Oh, that Family Circus! Where does that Bill Keane get his material? It’s funny because it’s true!” The book would thus be a personally selected collection of my favorite Family Circus delights, affectionately decopaged onto my foyer’s walls over many years. It would be the job of my assistant, however, to randomly mix and match the captions of the cartoons so that they no longer accompanied their original artwork. (I doubt little of Keane’s humor would be lost.) Each book would be a collection of unique combinations of caption and cartoon, a truly hearfelt, handmade gift from yours truly. In the inside back cover I would insert a perfumed thank you note with a self-addressed thank you note, already filled out, for their convenience. The thank you note would also be custom made, from recycled materials and by indigenous Mayan villagers paid a fare wage. When opened, the card will play “America the Beautiful.”
A scary story in the local alternative weekly focuses on the “Reconstructionist Movement,” a polito-religious group committed to turning the US into a fundamentalist theocracy reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s political wing is the Constitution Party, and its currently trying to run the Constitution Restoration Act through Congress–legislation which would effectively put religious conviction above the rule of law in American courts. Some Reconstructionist groups are purely political in means, while others won’t rule out violence. All of them, though, would agree with this statement:
The role of every earthly government—including family government, church government, school government, vocational government, and civil government—is to submit to Biblical law.
