"Open Thread" is another blogging term. Basically, the blogger will pose a question and the commentators will try to answer it, and pose questions to each other and the author. On the more heated political topics this gives people a chance to vent and fool around. On our more docile weblog it gives us a good chance to up the interactivity.
So what do you think of the idea of this blog? Useful? Fun? Anything you'd like to hear more of? Less? Let me know.
6 comments:
I love the blog...but what about the results from Friday night??? Amy and Jake came to High house with us this weekend. Beautiful time of the year.
I'm sorry I missed the trip to Asheville. After a trip to Florida to see Irene's parents Asheville is next on our list.
The outcome of the game was, unfortunately, a season ending 0-2 loss. At least it'll free up my Fridays.
Wow! This is so cool. I feel as though I've been wrenched into the twenty-first century. I love the music and the sermons. I didn't have any idea how versatile the blog would be.
I'm about to email my young and one not-so-young colleagues about beginning a discussion of visual/digital rhetoric. Your blog is giving me some cool ideas. So, you can hyperlink video, music, web pages. Really cool.
In the olden days we would have called bigotry a form of projection where one views the other as that which is most desired by the self (as in Lady MacBeth's thou dost protest too much. This certainly seems to be the case with senators and other high ranking officials who turn out to be gay after protesting gay rights mightily. Not that the pres. of Salisbury wants to be besieged, but, maybe.....
hello there! Chris- thanks so much for starting a blog. I wish my parents would consider getting the net in their new place. Well, we set my mom up with an e-mail account, so there's hope that they'll come around. It's great to see your parents commenting on your posts.
On the subject of bigotry, I appreciate your mom's connection with 'that which is most desired by the self'. I was thinking about this in regard to the views of many progressive protestant churches towards the growing Evangelical and Pentecostal communities. There is a reluctance on the part of the liberal protestants to consider what is making these other churches so successful. I'm inspired by Obama to try and remove myself from partisan church politics momentarily (if it's possible) to consider the more important question about the purpose and draw of Christianity more generally. What are people 'finding' in these other churches that is not present in many of the more traditional protestant congregations? Is it possible to make some adjustments to the identity and function of our churches without sacrificing our self understanding as Christians? I am hoping that the answer is yes. I'm trying to work on this, but I'm cognizant that as a newcomer to Christianity there is much I don't know about the longstanding roots of worship styles and church traditions.
Regarding the Salisbury issue, I was pretty disturbed by the 'blogging' discussion going on about her facebook posting. (specifically- the fact that her physique was brought into the discussion, the manner in which insults were hurled at her which were based on standards which the authors of the posts weren't following- (ie. to say someone is a "bigot" in a manner which is rather interchangeable with my own understanding of bigotry itself) It brings up a concern I have with the sheer power of our new 'public square' created by the internet. Unlike the public square which Jurgen Habermas describes, one which has certain standards of decency and accountability, there seems to be a tragic disconnection between people and their postings. On the one hand there are numerous benefits to 'staying connected' with folks, but on the other hand there is a growing sense in which people can say anything they want without considering the effect of their comments. In this regard, I do think it's important to hold people accountable for their posted opinions. Much like the successful 'wikipedia' phenomenon, it seems that holding eachother accountable is our only hope for helping the internet to capitalize on its productive rather than destructive possibilities. I don't know enough about the pres. of SU to weigh in on whether or not her posting can be linked with legitimate character questions, but I do think there's a value in letting people know that there's a responsibility which inevitably follows the 'freedom' of net postings. It would be sad to see it turn into another mode of silencing and a threat to personal expression and creativity, but the opposite alternative is also a concern- letting the internet become one more reinforcement of the country's struggle with racism, sexism--etc. hmmm. Chris- thanks for bringing up the topic! very interesting : ) back to my homework now. Love.
Just as bloggers should be held responsible for what they post, facebook posters should assume responsible for the images that they post. From a rhetorical perspective, an image conveys ethos in the same way that language does, perhaps even more so. Although I don't know what the bloggers said about Ms. Dudley-Eshbach, I'd think that someone in a position of leadership and authority as she is would be cognizant of the resonance of certain types of images. Since these virtual realities seem to be readibly accessible, individuals should vigilently guard the image they project, their branding. Imus is a case in point. Various audiences are alert to and eager to pounce on and attack "public" statements. As there are no agreed upon rules of decorum, "posters" should be wary, as was noted earlier in this blog.
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