“Heath Ledger is notable for being two things at the moment. They are: 1. Not gay. 2. Dead,” notes Eric TF Bat. “This hasn’t stopped our good friends at the Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ announcing plans to picket his memorial because he played a gay cowboy in some movie a while back.” Eric’s rant says what needs to be said.
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So last week Apple announced new products. Yawn. The Cult of Apple worshipped their God, and millions of words were written praising His Wisdom. However the most interesting comment I’ve read so far was about the political content of Steve Jobs’ presentation.
Alastair Rankine writes that the Macworld Keynote has moved from slick-but-reality-distorted marketing into the realms of straight-out entertainment, and then criticises Randy Newman’s performance. Not because it was crap (which, being Randy Newman, is inevitable), but because it was political.
Criticism of the Bush administration is something I obviously have a lot of time for. But is it suitable for a consumer product launch? …
Mix politics with business and you take a risk with a relatively small upside but a big downside. If your politics match mine, we are no more likely to do business together than before we knew each other’s positions. But if our politics disagree, this difference becomes a barrier that we each have to overcome in order to do business together.
I’m not arguing for censorship or anything. I’m just saying that the separation of politics and business is crucial for the success of both.
I disagree.
Business is about making money, yes, but sometimes I think it’s wrong to “leave politics at the door”. In fact, is it even possible?
Here’s a nice twist linking this week’s discussion threads. It turns out that Labor’s Internet filtering policy was largely driven by petitions to parliament — the very petitions which Chairman Rudd plans to make more effective.
Irene Graham (pictured), who commented here as “rene”, has been following censorship issues for years at libertus.net. In a post to Link she reminds us that back in October 2006, Senator Stephen Conroy was presenting a petition to parliament:
In March, Kim Beazley announced that a Labor Government would require all Internet Service Providers to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all households, schools and public libraries that would block access to websites identified as containing child pornography, acts of extreme violence and x-rated material.
In the Senate today, I tabled a petition signed by more than 20,000 Australians endorsing Labor’s policy… [which] clearly shows that this view is widely shared in the Australian community.
However those 20,646 signatures were gathered through churches, hardly “representative”.
A Christmas message in song from George W Bush, Leader of the Free World.
Hat tip to Peter Black.
Lots of Australian politicians claim to be Christians, but somehow the “What would Jesus do?” bit gets lost in the everyday business of arresting Indian doctors and sending refugees to concentration camps. Our new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he’s a Christian too. What sort?
Two years ago, Chairman Rudd gave a lecture at the University of NSW’s New College on Religion, The State and Politics. Written in the days of WorkChoices and well before Rudd became ALP leader, it begins with the observation that “Christianity began its life as an oppressed minority,” and argues that one of the church’s important roles is to speak out against injustice.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:30:30 — 10.4MB)
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when a celebration of the birth of social radical Joshua bar Joseph is turned into a retail extravaganza.
How do you feel about Christmas? Personally, I get annoyed with the “compulsory cheerfulness” and the pointless mob behaviour. As the old saying goes, you can’t pick your families, and Christmas forces them together regardless — though reports that the suicide rate peaks at Christmas is an urban legend.
Yes, how do you feel about Christmas? Go to the website to vote, or add your comments here.
[Yes, that is me in the photograph. I made the antlers for the Snarky Platypus, who should be wearing them on Friday, and ’Pong took the photo using my Nokia N80.]
Last night ’Pong (pictured) and I went to the opening of In Your Face, an exhibition of photographs of photographers taken by other photographers showing until 4 November at Paddington Uniting Church.
This photo is not one of them, and ’Pong wasn’t one of the photographers. I just reckon this was a curious painting to hang in a church, and ’Pong liked it. So I took a photo with my pimple-cam.
Paddington Uniting Church intrigued me. Their motto is “Faith Inclusiveness Justice Creativity”, and out the front there’s a sign explaining their “progressive” mission.
They must put something in the water at places like Google and Apple.
I mean, isolating everyone at a “campus” even to the point where they only eat with each other is one of the classic cult-creation techniques. And both have a personality cult thing going with Steve Jobs and Larry Page and Sergey Brin
But check this Google software engineer gushing over the chance to do menial work in the kitchen:
How often do you get to cook fine cuisine for 800 people — especially while learning from some of the finest chefs in the business? Our Google chefs offer a limited number of culinary internships, and I was lucky enough to win one. So one fine Thursday morning I got to spend 4 hours in the Google kitchens working with, and learning from, our amazing culinary engineers.
Like so many software people, Dave MacLachlan seems amazed that other professionals actually have systems too, and know what they’re doing.
Excellent. The Bible (you may have heard of it?) is being translated into LOLcat.
1. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat was invisible, and he maded the skiez and da earths, but he did not eated it.
2. The earths wus witout shapez and wus dark and scary and stuffs, and he rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3. And Ceiling Cat sayz, i can has light? and teh light wuz.
Whaddya think about the Hillsong Church, eh? No, actually, I’ll go first. It worries me.
Of the various controversies about Hillsong, two stand out for me:
- Fundamentalism is A Very Bad Thing, whether it’s about Islam, Christianity, Marxism, Free Market Economics, wind power generation or whether the milk goes in first. The Church of Virus lists Dogmatism as one of the Three Senseless Sins, and while CoV is somewhat tongue in cheek it’s nevertheless spot on. Fundamentalism denies individual thought or adaptation to changing circumstances. Fundamentalism is nothing more than intellectual bullying: “I will tell you what to think.” This is dangerous. When people cease to think for themselves they become slaves. Hillsong is a Fundamentalist organisation: internal debate is not permitted.
- Prosperity Theology is a hypocritical perversion of what that Joshua bar Joseph bloke was actually saying. OK, the gold-plated silk-clad parasites of the Vatican aren’t exactly a shining example of his teachings either. But to appropriate the Jesus brand and leave out all the difficult bits is a lot like that Che Guevara t-shirt as a symbol of enlightened rebellion.
Now I’m all for freedom of religion. Please, everybody, think for yourselves and decide your own beliefs! That’s a fundamental human right. I support you in your endeavours. But another fundamental right is freedom of speech. I get to say why I think you’re wrong (and vice versa), and out of that interchange some glorious new synthesis might arise.
Hillsong denies those fundamental human rights to its own members — by suppressing thought through Fundamentalism and suppressing free speech by denying dissent.
Pinky Beecroft, the sometimes-scrambled former lead singer of Machine Gun Fellatio, has been attending Hillsong and wrote about it for Manic Times. Long, but packed with ironic observations.
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