Chad Coleman Coleman itibaren Telpuri, Haryana, Hindistan itibaren Telpuri, Haryana, Hindistan

i just couldn't get into it.

Fucked up. Eye opening.

Tricky thing, relationships between culture and politics. Calling himself a “critical utopian,” Jenkins ascribes all kinds of power to “consumption communities,” or fans. He sees collective meaning-making among fans as beginning to change our institutions, from advertising and entertainment industries to the military, law, and politics – and he sees these changes as fruitful, powerful, and encouraging. Pulling out several case studies in popular culture (American Idol, Survivor, Harry Potter, The Matrix) he explores what Pierre Levy calls “collective intelligence” among consumers, participatory culture, and media convergences (which he posits as more than a technological phenomenon, but also cultural and social). While his is an engaging argument and he identifies hallmarks of contemporary media culture (and hey, I like arguments that celebrate media culture in the face of dire media analyses), I confess to being a bit stuck in what Jenkins would call “critical pessimism.” Quite simply, I have a difficult time caring about the ways in which commercial media have become responsive to consumers’ desires, emotions, and so forth – I just don’t like feeling commodified. Ultimately I’m not sure I buy (so to speak) his “politics of participation,” and I’m certainly sure I don't like framing these power dynamics in terms of labor relations (i.e. describing fan power over corporate media as “collective bargaining power”).

this is a book about the life and career of patty duke from an award winning child actress, to her life as an adult, her career, her marriages, her relationships with such people as desi arnez jr, , her relationships with her children, and finally her diagnoses with and ongoing battle with bipolar disorder, and her life today

Lee Strobel has put together some interesting and high quality books on apologetics. I was expecting the same quality out of this book and was sorely disappointed. When reading the title I thought I was getting a book about the worldview of unchurched people. Instead, the book simply was a critique of modern churches. It's main theme was "Any church that is not Willow Creek or a Willow Creek clone is bad because people won't want to go to it." The book focuses so much on tactics (from the 1990s) that it forgets to leave room for the Holy Spirit to work--the same Holy Spirit who has always used a broken and goofy church to do its work. The book itself is dated already, being 15 years old, and many of the once cutting-edge strategies that seemed like good ideas at the time now seem old and cheesy (the very thing the book was fighting). One part of the book that I find useful is its call to have sermons that are not predictable. The number one reason people stay away from the church is because they feel like they already know what the pastor is going to say. Unfortunately, while Strobel realizes this, I still found his book and the types of sermons he suggests in it to be old, bland and predictable. It seems as if this book is no longer useful to the church in 2009. It is time for serious pastors to consider their strategies and stop spending so much time developing tactics.