A Case of Questionable Rhetoric

I find this Onion article--"Female Serial Killer has to Work Twice as Hard to Achieve Notoriety"--to be in less than stellar taste. It's not the article itself; this is the Onion after all--it's the fact that they chose to locate the killer in Michigan. To be fair, they put their fictionalized killer in Otsego, which is just north of Kalamazoo on the west side, but considering Lansing is actually in the early stages of trying a suspected serial killer, the timing and location is... less than wonderful. I suppose it could be worse; they could have set it in mid-Michigan, or they could have put a satirized shooting spree in a northern Wisconsin town, but still, a little bit of forethought would have been nice.

I'm not sure what to think of this

This email came through the university listserv today:

Google, Microsoft, and other companies are offering, at no charge, an
increasingly diverse set of online, web-based software tools, many of which
provide standard "office" functions such as document and slide deck
production and management, spreadsheeting and communications, including
e-mail. These tools run on company (vendor) servers, and user files and
other content are stored on company systems as well. The no-cost option is
attractive to many University units, faculty and staff. However, due to the
terms of use and business models being applied to these tools, they MAY NOT
be used in the conduct of University work.


To illustrate one concern, the terms to which you agree when you use Google
Apps (http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en) include the following; which
compromises the University's intellectual property rights and the security of University records:


"You [user] retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in
Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. BY
SUBMITTING, POSTING OR DISPLAYING THE CONTENT YOU GIVE GOOGLE A PERPETUAL, IRREVOCABLE, WORLDWIDE, ROYALTY-FREE, AND NON-EXCLUSIVE LICENSE TO REPRODUCE, ADAPT, MODIFY, TRANSLATE, PUBLISH, PUBLICLY PERFORM, PUBLICLY DISPLAY AND DISTRIBUTE ANY CONTENT WHICH YOU SUBMIT, POST OR DISPLAY ON OR THROUGH, THE SERVICES. . You agree that this license INCLUDES A RIGHT FOR GOOGLE TO MAKE SUCH CONTENT AVAILABLE TO OTHER COMPANIES, ORGANIZATIONS OR INDIVIDUALS WITH WHOM GOOGLE HAS RELATIONSHIPS for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services." (emphasis added)


Furthermore, neither Google nor Microsoft makes any promise to back up
content, secure confidential or proprietary content, or provide free service
for any particular period of time. If they change their minds about the
business utility of this model, it may simply go away one day.


Contract terms like these do not provide appropriate protection for
University business records or documents. If software tools like these are
used in instruction, they may compromise student intellectual property
protections. They may also adversely affect commercialization or
publication of intellectual property created by faculty. Because
individuals frequently do not know that they are creating University
business records, including student records, in the course of doing their
daily work at MSU, ANY use of these sorts of online tools must be avoided.
Individuals or units contemplating use of any software tool or online
service should carefully read and consider the terms of use, and seek
appropriate legal or other review from University administrative offices
when terms of use are incompatible with University policy or exceed the
relevant administrator's authority.

Now I'm a big fan of Google and have used Google Docs for several things, both school-related and personal. I'm also distinctly not a fan of the university's webmail system (128 MB limit? Seriously?). I do, however, understand the university's concerns. Are they being neo-luddites? I'm not sure. I'll have to do some more thinking about this.

Westboro Baptist Church Loses Lawsuit

Oh, thank God. Westboro's practices in general would make an interesting rhetorical case study (perhaps a future blog entry on my part), but for now, suffice it to say that even if their logic is reasonable according to Scripture, their methods are not. It's as if they've stuck with the Old Testament model of spirituality and completely ignored the whole need for love thing.

I also have an interesting history with Calvinism (long story), so I was amused to see that Westboro claims five point Calvinism as its theology. It would be interesting to see if Westboro's actions are, in fact, reflective of Calvinism taken to its logical extreme.

Moby rocks, and not just for his music.

Someone recently sent Moby a YouTube link to one of his own videos. It's unclear why. Maybe the person just wanted to let Moby know that it was up and possibly violating copyright or something. But Moby's response was to post the YouTube link himself. A musician? Who is actually harnessing the power of the internets? Awesome!

see original post

Also, see Moby on Net Neutrality

As part of a deal to fix the recent Michigan budget crisis, the Senate passed a bill cutting future teachers' benefits. Meanwhile, as the Lansing State Journal points out, they left their own benefits intact.

Actually, the article leaves me feeling vaguely optimistic. I mean, it sucks for all my teacher friends--and I know quite a few people in education. Three of them in particular may get burned by this--one's doing long-term subbing in Pennsylvania, one's in North Carolina, and one's on a missions trip in Albania--if they ever want to come back to Michigan, which is where their families are, they'll be a little bit screwed. Naturally, it irritates me that the legislature would hurt the public schools before it hurts itself. On the other hand, I'm outraged because I'm now aware of the issue--but I wouldn't be aware of the problem if it weren't pointed out to the newspaper by Senators. Maybe there's hope for change.

Rethinking the Complementarian Wife

I had lunch with my mother and sister-in-law today. Both my dad and my brother are in the process of looking for new jobs, and both women expressed with the certainty of faith their belief that both men would soon find jobs, because, as both believed, "the husband is supposed to be the breadmaker of the family."

I was somewhat surprised to discover that I disagree with this sentiment.

I should back up. If you can't tell, I come from a pretty conservative background, and actually have inherited this position. I actually self-identify as Baptist. It's not an entirely true picture of my theology, but it's the closest picture that most people understand. And I'm a complementarian, which mostly means that, if I ever marry, I expect that certain details of husbandly and wifely roles will hold true.

Case in point: my sister-in-law is two months pregnant with her first child. As I believe that the wife is better suited to stay with the child, and that the child's physical/psychological/spiritual wellbeing is usually better off when the mother stays at home through his or her early development, I certainly expect my brother to get a more stable job than his current one. In effect, my brother will, by the grace of God, take on the role of the breadmaker of the family, a role which he and his wife currently share.

For Mom and Dad, however, this is a different matter. They're empty-nesters. Mom doesn't have to stay home to take care of her children. Dad's job hunt is for a new job so that he can take early retirement from his current one (if he doesn't find one, he just won't retire). In their circumstances, there's no reason that Mom shouldn't be the one earning the primary income (other than the fact that she may then have to give up certain leisure pursuits).

It's even scriptural. Consider the Proverbs 31 woman. She was the one who kept her family fed and clothed. She took charge of the charity contributions. She even kept up with the housework (though the litany of servants certainly helped in that). This freed her husband up to to Important Political Things of a nature that isn't entirely clear to me, other than that said work likely involved sandals. Point: the woman was the one who kept everyone fed and everything running. And if there could be such things as Active Business Women who were Not Also Harlets in those days, certainly it means that a middle-aged woman can get a job to pay the bills while her husband tries to figure out what God has planned. Or a young woman with young children can run a freelance business out of her house to at least supplement her husband's income. And you know what else? They talk about caring for the widow and the orphan, and that's certainly important, but in modern America, there are other social justice issues of more importance than taking care of women fully capable of getting jobs.

Waiting for the Next Bubble to Burst

I'll never understand Web 2.0 companies. To be honest, they've always seemed like the hipster children of the dot-com bubble--like the brains behind flooz and kibu got together over drinks and decided to have another go. Take, say, Twitter. It's hard to fit in even two full sentences, and yet somehow it's reasonably successful--or at least, "all the cool Web 2.0 kids are doing it." What's their corporate model? From whence comes their funding?

I bring this up because I just came across spinsnap, which touts itself as "channel-surfing the internet." First, this concept seems familiar--I could be wrong, but I feel as if I came across something very similar a few years back. It's an interesting concept and is clearly ad-supported, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how this website will stay afloat. The sites they include on their randomized list don't seem to be sponsored--that is, anyone can suggest any site, though I'm reasonably certain they're trying to keep porn out of it. (Or not--adult friend finder just came up.) Really, though, what is this? "Hey, I have an awesome idea! Let's get ad sponsors to help keep very bored people entertained! We'll model it after Google's 'I'm feeling lucky!' function, only without even giving it the guidance of a search word!" It just doesn't seem sustainable.

To spinsnap's credit, they have an interesting implementation--you can search by websites, by music, or by people. Music seems particularly interesting to me. Really, this tirade is against Web 2.0 corporations in general. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's another bubble burst in the next year or two, as companies realize their services aren't really all that useful and as they discover that their costs outweigh their profits, and therefore start quietly pulling their services away. I have little doubt that this movement will be replaced by one that will ultimately prove equally unstable, of course, but one can hope.