Culture

Take a deep breath, originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey.

My father turns 70 today. In our family, that means pyrotechnics.

We traditionally get our birthday cakes from Robert’s Bakery, in downtown Butler. My brother loaded up the cake with 70 candles, and Dad managed to get them all extinguished before the cake caught fire.

The icing did melt a bit though.

Happy birthday, Dad!

It’s easy for me to view things only in spiritual terms, to care about how I am doing spiritually. Then I read this verse in John’s 3 letter…

3 John 1:2
Dear friend, I know that you are spiritually well. I pray that you’re doing well in every other way and that you’re healthy. (GNT)

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.(KJV)

• Healthy-in the Greek hugiaino (hoog-ee-ah’-ee-no) meaning to have sound health, i.e. be well (in body), to be uncorrupt- true in doctrine, be in health, be safe and sound, be wholesome.

It’s easy to get caught spending hours on my spiritual condition; spiritual experiences and spiritual knowledge but little time on the other areas of my life. I can spend hours reading, hour studying, and in prayer…but minutes on working on relationships or my body.

What could a correct view of our entire lives look like?

• Spiritual-our connection with God
• Body- our body health
• Mind- learning is living
• Heart- our purity and our passion
• Others- our relationships with others

Ask yourself these questions to see if your life is truly healthy?

1. When was the last time I spent an hour doing something for a friend without expecting a thank-you? (Relationship)
2. When was the last time I ate less and worked out? (Body)
3. When was the last time I turned off the noise, the technology, and got alone with God? (Spiritual)
4. When was the last time I learned something new (not something spiritual) and now use it on a regular basis? (Mind)
5. When was the last time I cried for the wrong things I’ve done? (Heart)

Have you heard about heartsupport yet?

Ask yourself this: When  was the last time I heard someone in church speak about how to help people who deal with: Self-injury, Depression, Addiction, Suicide, Eating Disorders?

• When was the last time you talked with some one about cutting, pornography, eating disorders, or depression?

• How can we help people become good friends (a good neighbor) if they don’t know how to truly help the hurting?

• What are you doing to help those around you that struggle with addiction, suicide, self-injury, depression, and eating disorders?

I’ve fallen off the Twitter bandwagon. At first I stopped twittering in righteous indignation at the amount of time that the site goes down, or shuts down services because it’s overloaded. If I’m using something to stay in touch with people, I want it to work reliably. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I have an account on Pownce, and I thought I might use that as my Twitter alternative: a place to post short things that aren’t quite ready-for-blog-time, and to see what my friends are up to. It’s fine for that, except there’s not a critical mass of my curent friends there. Using Pownce felt like being the first one at a party, standing around holding a drink and waiting for everyone else to show up — and feeling sure that everyone has decided to go instead to another party across town (or stay at the party (Twitter) that they were already at).

So I didn’t use anything for a while. This turned out to be a lonely but brilliant idea. Lonely, because I was disconnected from the on-going conversations that everyone is continuing to have, doing perfectly fine without my interjections. Brilliant, because not being part of these conversations freed up oodles of time during the work day, time that I used to get real, paying work done.

And it turned out that, while those missed conversations were fun, I was still able to keep in enough touch with people to maintain friendships and feel sufficiently connected.

Still and all, I missed having an outlet for small observations, and I wished for a way to keep a little bit in the loop. I tried just dipping into Twitter and jumping back out, but the glitches and outages still seem to be going on. And the conversations are addictive; I don’t think my willpower is strong enough for small sips at the firehose.

I noticed a few people talking about Plurk. Yet another social networking site? Yes. I like its interface, especially how easy it is to see a thread of conversations (a big problem in Twitter). Plurk also doesn’t promise to be instantaneous, so it feels different from Twitter and instant messaging. The odd cartoony graphics are intriguing.

I’m especially interested in how they’ve integrated a concept of karma. The more you do with Plurk, the more karma you build; you ca also lose karma in various ways. The more karma you have, the more features you have access to. This matches one of the important principles for building a good social network (one which I first heard about from Brad King): No free rides. If you want to play, you have to contribute.

(Now that I think about it, Plurk karma is kind of like one of the rules of Fight Club: If this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight. Interesting.)

Anyway, one big way to build Plurk karma is to invite others to join. So…

Accept my invitation to Plurk!

This looks interesting:
A Transom Special Feature with Art Outlet’s SELF Program & FLIK International Movie Festival What is SELF?

SELF is a forum created by Art Outlet where artists explore self-portraiture in traditional and non-traditional media. It can be a memory, a vignette from life, an interesting dream that affected you, an experience of moving to a new culture, a story your mother once told you, an event that changed your notion of identity, a meditation on a certain theme in your life…

Transom, in association with Art Outlet and the FLIK International Movie Festival, is seeking multi-media self-portraits to be featured at the festival and on the site. We’ll offer honoraria to those we put on Transom. All stories must be non-fiction, under five minutes, and include both audio and visual components. The visual can literally reflect the story, or complement it – your choice. Along with your soundtrack, you can use photo slideshows, cut up old films and videos, animation, footage of locations or related imagery, or even a series of hand drawings. Whatever works for the story. (By the way, Transom is pleased to be working on this project with our original Web Director, Josh Barlow).

The video embedded above is a submission for the project, from Renee Shaw. It’s titled “My Best Friend Mark.”

Special announcement, with a deal for Pittsburgh-area bloggers:

Area bloggers are invited free of charge to Quantum Theatre’s performance of Shakepeare’s Cymbeline:

Preview Performance (they will be testing the techie workings of the production)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Mellon Park (Point Breeze/Shadyside neighborhood)
8PM (no late seating, gates lock at 8 sharp)

Quantum Theatre’s upcoming production is Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, which runs in Mellon Park from July 31-Aug 24. It is truly innovative in that Karla Boos — the director and Quantum founder — is collaborating with Illah Nourbakhsh at the Robotics Institute at CMU to integrate interactive technology into the production.

We can’t spill any more secrets than that, except to say that this event is sure to be a wonder.

Find out about Quantum Theatre at their website: www.quantumtheatre.com.

RSVP required; cancellations appreciated. Please RSVP to Rene Conrad at rconrad@quantumtheatre.com or 412.697.2929.

Crusty Rusty Bolts originally uploaded by mikeyexists

Friday evening and Saturday, bloggers from Pittsburgh, Erie, Youngstown, Cleveland, Buffalo, and other cities in this region will be meeting for the first Rust Belt Bloggers Summit.

Our primary goal — or at least, my view of our goal — is to meet and learn about each other and our common interests, with the hope of finding ways to work together. We share the desire to use social media to support and improve our communities; since the cities in the Rust Belt share history and characteristics, we should be able to find a lot in common.

City Paper previewed the event in an article today ("Bloggers to unite under common threads at conference"), with quotes from me and Doug Derda, as well as other thoughtful bloggers in other cities.

If you’re interested in attending, visit the Rust Belt Bloggers website to get details, and come join us. No registration needed; just show up.

Let’s shake off some of this rust, shall we?

I spoke too soon when I said that AMC was the only cable network I needed. I forgot the USA Network.

Burn Notice, my favorite television guilty pleasure, returns Thursday for its second season.

Burn Notice combines the spy techniques and intra-agency backstabbing of the Jason Bourne movies with MacGuyver do-it-yourself surveillance tips, then it adds some Ferris Bueller-type tongue-in-cheek voiceovers, and finally it throws the whole thing on the beaches of Miami. There’s more than enough eye candy for viewers of any gender, and just the right amount of intrigue to keep things interesting.

And the co-stars include Bruce “The Chin” Campbell (of the Evil Dead series) and Sharon Gless (Cagney of the detective series Cagney & Lacey). An abundance of riches.

For a taste of the sensibility of the show, watch this longer, more explanatory promo. Or check out the “Ask a Spy” feature on the show’s website. The show’s lead, Michael Westen (played by the strangely compelling Jeffrey Donovan) answers questions you didn’t know you had. Like, how can I break out of a prison in Turkmenistan? and how can I avoid embarrassing myself when playing sports at a company retreat? Great stuff.

And did you notice the soundtrack of that promo I pasted in above? Yes, that’s Billy Squier singing. Oh yeah.

The Colbert Report is one of my favorite places to get my news. So when I saw that N.T. Wright was going to be the guest a view weeks ago I was worried. Christians tend to be terrible on interview based shows-from the big names to the crazy guy they find to interview for the Christian perspective, Christian some how end up with a bad rep because of these interviews (usually for a good reason). I’m also a very big fan of N.T. Wright’s view/theology of the Kingdom of Heaven (also his view on Hell). I was totally impressed by his responses, his attitude, and his ability to speak about the huge idea of heaven in a way that all audiences could understand.

• What do you think?
• How does your view of heaven cause you to live differently everyday?

(Ht: Between Two Worlds)

I wanted to show you a video of Ballboy performing “Something’s Going to Happen.” I envisioned that the title of my post would be “And no one will ever love you as much as I do.” It’s a perfect song for this evening.

Also: It’s true, you know. No one will ever love you as much as I do.

But YouTube doesn’t have a video of the band performing that song. They do have this lovely ditty though. The title is “I Lost You, But I Found Country Music,” and I think you’ll enjoy it.

You might also like this next song, especially the opening narrative. The song is “Avant Garde Music,” again by Ballboy.

I’ve just learned that AMC is remaking The Prisoner, the rather spooky and incomprehensible but wildly engrossing Cold War series that the BBC made in the late 60s.

The original version of The Prisoner starts out like a James Bond story, but then gets very weird. The hero, played by Patrick McGoohan with a constant smirk and raised eyebrow, is a man known only as Number Six. The titles show us that he has resigned from some spy agency, then was kidnapped. He awakens in an isolated seashore community called the Village, from which he can’t escape. Why is he there? Who are these other people in the Village? Why can’t he leave? Who is Number One? It’s all mysterious, and it’s also surreal — the colors, the images, the giant white bubble that captures and returns anyone who tries to escape.

“Be seeing you” is the main catchphrase from the show. It’s how the characters say “goodbye”; there’s no escape, so of course they’ll be seeing you, but also the community is full of spies and security cameras, so at any time someone is seeing you.

The uneasy sensibility of The Prisoner fit the Cold War period perfectly. It also suits our current day, with the erosion of personal liberties by government as well as the loss of privacy via our lives on the Web and the constant sharing of personal data. (Giant Eagle Advantage Card, anyone?)

AMC is already my new favorite cable network, what with the classic movies and novel programming like Mad Men. Soon I won’t need any other channels. Be seeing you, indeed.

The New York Times spends 36 hours in Pittsburgh, and likes what it finds:
…old stereotypes die hard, and Pittsburgh probably doesn’t make many
people’s short list for a cosmopolitan getaway. Too bad, because this
city of 89 distinct neighborhoods is a cool and — dare I say, hip—city.
There are great restaurants, excellent shopping,
breakthrough galleries and prestigious museums. The convergence of
three rivers and surrounding green hills also make it a surprisingly
pretty urban setting.

Brillobox, The City Theatre, La Prima, and the Heinz History Center all are featured, along with standbys like the Incline, The Mattress Factory, and the Warhol Museum.

Most of us, whether students or adults, have more free time in the summer. Summer often becomes a time to simply relax and wait till late August until you really dig in a do things. I want to encourage you to use this summer rather than let it be the same it as last summer, or the summer before. I have decided for myself somethings I am personally challenging myself to do. This is my Summer 10 Things to Do list (creative I know)!

1. Read the entire New Testament

2.  Read 4 books on Theology

3.  Read 2 books on Church History

4.  Read 2 books on Bible characters

5.  Complete A Media Fast

6.  Have Personal Retreat (day)

7.  Take My Wife To A Restaurant I Can’t Afford

8.  Go with my wife somewhere she’s never been before

9.  Organize My Office

10. Reconnect with friends I haven’t talked to recently

What does your summer look like?

• What are some of your personal challenges?
• What are you doing to complete these challenges?
• What do you need to adjust in your life this summer in order to grow?

Purple Loosestrife, originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg

Popular opinion has treated the invasive plants as botanical illegal aliens. The Environmental Protection Agency has labeled them as the second-greatest threat to the continent’s biodiversity, exceeded in their impact only by outright destruction of habitat. Major resources have been devoted to the spraying and rooting-out of invasive plants in the belief that their removal would enable an ecological revival. Roughly $45 million, for example, is spent every year in the unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of a single European wetland weed, purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria).

New research, however, suggests that invasive species, at least in some instances, aren’t so much the causes of environmental degradation as eco-opportunists taking advantage of disturbed habitats. Or, as the biologist Andrew MacDougall of the University of Guelph, Ontario, puts it, the invasives may behave more as “passengers” than as “drivers.”

From Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate Crisis? (NYTimes.com)

I’ve been involved in the past with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a wonderful organization that maintains Fallingwater and acts as custodian for natural resources in this state. Several years ago, I attended a workshop on exotic invasive plants, like purple loosestrife, multiflora rose, orange day-lily, and English ivy among many others, and participated in a project to remove purple loosestrife from a stream near here. It was hard and discouraging work: We spent a day carefully cutting off and bagging plants, but made barely any impression in the space.

One frequently cited definition is that a weed is “a plant out of place.” Many of the invasive exotics were brought here originally by well-intentioned gardeners and home owners. Purple loosestrife is rather pretty, for example. But because these plants proliferate so quickly and widely, we view them as weeds.

Now I read in this article in the NY Times that removal efforts like the purple loosestrife project I worked on may indirectly hasten the decline of native species in the area:

For three years [biologist Andrew MacDougall of the University of Guelph] removed the invasive grasses from plots he outlined within [a Nature Conservancy Canada property on Vancouver Island]. In some plots, he did this by mowing or burning; in others, he removed the weeds entirely. Yet the native flora didn’t rebound significantly. In some cases, the decline of the native plant species instead accelerated, and the fundamental character of the flora within the plots began to change, with woody plants encroaching on the formerly open, grassy areas.

MacDougall concluded that rather than serving as drivers of change, the foreign grasses were functioning more in the role of passengers, merely filling in as the natives disappeared. In fact, the foreigners seemed to be serving a stabilizing role. By blocking light from reaching the soil, they inhibited the germination of tree and shrub seeds. Keeping the brush at bay in this fashion preserved the open character of the savanna habitat so that the remnants of the original savanna wildflowers, grasses and wildlife could at least survive. In light of these findings, MacDougall says, he came to believe that the primary cause of the native flora’s decline was human intervention. Before European settlement, fire periodically cleansed the soil surface of dead plant material. Suppression of fire since settlement had allowed a thick layer of litter to accumulate, and the foreign grasses cope better with this than do the natives.

This theary makes sense, yet it also raises the question of what we should do — or not do. It seems impossible to think of not trying to remove fast-growing plants; it’s too easy to imagine a South consumed by kudzu. But until we can find ways to reduce our production of carbon dioxide (which seems to encourage the growth of many other unwelcome plant species), we may find we need to lean on certain invasives to help us preserve other species.

Suddenly, these plants no longer seem quite like weeds any more.

You may wet hard copies of these stories and wrap them on your self and let them dry, like papier-mâché. Afterwards the stories will have taken on the shape of your body.

From “Terms of Use” at Distorte