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June 09, 2005

Using the innocents, continued

: Following Debra Burlingame's devastating attack on the International Freedom Center's plans for the World Trade Center, its head, Richard Tofel, writes about it in today's Wall Street Journal -- but does not answer one of her (or my) issues. I challenge anyone to read Tofel's drivel and tell me what the center will do, what it will have, what it will say, unless its walls will be covered in platitudes like his.

: Michele Malkin continues the attack on the center.

: Oliver Willis, in turn, attacks me for agreeing with Malkin on this. But, unfortunately, that's the high-school mentality Oliver brings to such matters: He doesn't address the issues but instead judges people merely by their associations. Malkin and I have met and agreed that we don't agree about many things. But we most surely agree about this. We will not tolerate seeing the construction of a Why They Hate Us Pavillion, a Selective Sin Center at the World Trade Center.

: Kathy Shaidle isn't suggesting what could happen at the new Center -- and neither am I -- but she can imagine what it might be.

: The big question is what we can do about this. We the people had some small input into the decision on the memorial -- we at least got to submit our own and saw all the submissions. That process was transparent. This is opaque. As Wizbang says, Tofel merely tells us to trust him. But I don't.

This mess at the World Trade Center falls -- once again -- squarely at the feet of Gov. Pataki. We need to demand that Pataki and Bloomberg open up the process and assure us that this will not turn into the International Flagellation Center.

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Agree/disagree

: Gallup has put up a bunch of handy RSS feeds of polls. The only problem is that some of it goes to pay pages ($95/year). But it's good for pulse-checking. I also subscribe to Polling Report, which aggregates many results in ongoing topics.

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Are you a thyroid patient?

: Mary Shoman, who writes the excellent thyroid guide at About.com (where, remember, I'm consulting: full disclosure) is looking for a thyroid patient in the New York area to appear on a big national TV show to talk about treatment. Go to her post to see the requirements. It so happens that I am a thyroid patient myself (having waved goodbye to half of mine... that's how I know Mary's site) but I don't meet any of those requirements, save for living in Jersey. Pass the word, please.

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God's work

: Thanks to Carsonfire in the comments below, we read a most remarkable evangelical Christian editorial opposing attempts to extend FCC censorship to cable and satellite. It's more than just tactical, political advice; it takes the evangelical imperative to say that such intereference is distracting and dangerous. Amen, brother. Jordan J. Ballor writes:

Such an unprecedented move speaks to the growing influence of evangelical Christian political activism. Indeed, some evangelicals have long supported huge increases in FCC fines and expanded powers for the governmental agency....

Christians should certainly be active participants in every facet of society, including politics. But Christian activists need to be wary of falling prey to the temptation to use political power to impose external standards of morality for a number of interconnected reasons.

First, there is a disturbing trend among American evangelicals to stress public exhibitions of virtue, often to the detriment of personal practice. The furor over the public displays of the 10 Commandments is one example, but the fight over broadcast decency has taken on a similar flavor.

For Christians, the significance of the new covenant means that it is more important that the law be written on our hearts than that it be displayed in our courtrooms. For Christian concern to be otherwise brings us under Jesus’ condemnation of Pharisaical hypocrisy.

This truth flows into a second and closely related problem. Overzealous political activism poses a threat to the fundamental task of the church: proclamation of the gospel. Many criticize the relief efforts of nominally Christian groups, such as the National Council of Churches, which divorce evangelism and charitable work. But where Christians rightly decry such inconsistency in other quarters, we should also beware the temptation elsewhere to confuse or obscure the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The gospel is not reducible to the institution of laws amenable to Christian morality.

Isn't that wonderful? In short: You can't legislate morality. You have to live morally.

And a disproportionate emphasis on such laws tends toward a position that is inimical to Christianity. Yet the perception often remains that the way the church is to “engage culture” is primarily, if not solely, through public policy.

Beyond these theological problems lies a prudential question of the wise use of political power. While Christians maintain the influence to form policy in a certain area, the laws are likely to remain in accord with Christian morality. The danger is that once the power of such regulation of speech and free expression has been ceded to the government, it is nearly impossible to get it back. And it is almost certain that the current season of Christian political influence will eventually wane.

Today perhaps the antics of a Howard Stern will be outlawed by increased governmental regulation. But tomorrow it may be that simply reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans will be prohibited as hate speech, indecent or otherwise intolerant.

Couldn't have preached it better myself.

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Every tyrant's 15 minutes of fame

: Do we smell a trend: A week ago, Tom Brokaw got into Iran for a series of reports and now ABC News is getting into North Korea. [via MediaBistro]

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Effective immediately

: Has anyone noted the irony that just as GM touts giving consumers the same benefits it gives its employees, it fires thousands of employees. So will it soon give its former customers severence?

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Small is the new big, continued

: Evelyn Rodriguez continues the riffing on the notion that small is the big (see me here and here and Seth Godin here and here):

MBAs train for BIG. Most business books will advise you on BIG. Yet you often simply cannot take BIG ideas and transfer them directly to SMALL without disasterous results. You often need completely new thinking.

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Offing Tony

: Rep. Bernie Sanders warns what will happen if Congress passes the numbnutty attempts to extend the FCC's numbnutty censorship to cable and satellite:

And it won't just be the Sopranos getting the boot from primetime. There'll be no more Chris Rock specials. No more Howard Stern on the E Channel. No more R-rated films.

He goes after the White House and the Republicans but the sad truth is that Democrats are in this too. Too many are too afraid to stand up for free speech. How pathetic is that?[via SpeakSpeak]

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The buttons that changed the world

: Ernie Miller notes the 30th anniversary of the VCR. The other day, I noted a fellow panelist marking the 28th year since the remote control reached 50 percent penetration in America.

These are the buttons that changed the world. I say this so often when I do my blogboy dance, I might as well just pull up the podcast of my life and hit play:

The most important invention in the history of media was not the Gutenberg press but the remote control, for it gave the people control of media.

This led to cable and in turn to the internet, which allowed us to control not just the consumption but also the creation of media. And we know how that is changing the worlds of media, marketing, politics, government, education, dictatorships, life.

It started with a click.

It started with handing over control to the people.

This is how my book starts....

... if I can find the time to write the damned thing.

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Aw, shucks

: Australian blogger Paul Edwards writes a post sure to warm the hearts of and get links from many a Yank blogger today: Thanks, America.

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The lady doth protest a heckuva lot

: CNN rounds up all the big-buck advertising campaigns old media are undertaking to try to change their image. Methinks that changes in the products will say more than any ad campaign.

To be sure, newspapers, radio and magazines still control roughly half of the $180 billion-plus U.S. advertising market. But their growth rates are among the slowest of all major media, causing concerns that they will lose out to the faster-growing Internet and cable television in the long run.

Kimball and his radio and magazine counterparts see the image makeovers as a way to shed their industries' reputation for stodginess and to refute the impression that their industries are doomed by new technologies.

Radio, for instance, is touting its move toward high-definition radio. The industry is also embracing a popular new practice called "podcasting," in which users can download popular radio shows onto their computer hard drives or a portable device.

Newspaper and magazine publishers are looking to tap digital technologies for new revenues streams, including providing content to cell phones and other wireless devices.

Newspapers, criticized for failing to see the revenue potential of online job searches and other forms of classified advertising, are taking business risks now that they never did before, said Kimball.

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