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At Stake: The greatest threat to world stability in history.
The Story: One man's journey of profound personal transformation in the midst of extreme international crisis.
The Title: The Lazarus Covenant
BREATHE PressPublisher of The Lazarus Covenant
Publication Date: March 2009
488 pp. 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-9822379-0-8
Hardcover
$24.95PRE-ORDERS ACCEPTED NOW!
Get Your Copy of THE LAZARUS COVENANT First!
The Book in One Sentence:
"First and foremost, think before you speak to make sure you are speaking with good purpose. Glib talk disrespects others. Breezy self-disclosure disrespects yourself. So many people feel compelled to give voice to any passing feeling, thought or impression they have. They randomly dump the contents of their minds without regard to the consequences. This is practically and morally dangerous…Frivolous talk is hurtful talk; besides, it is unbecoming to be a chatterbox. ...It’s not necessary to restrict yourself to lofty subjects or philosophy all the time, but be aware that the common babbling that passes for worthwhile discussion has a corrosive effect on your higher purpose. When we blather about trivial things, we ourselves become trivial, for our attention gets taken up with trivialities. You become what you give your attention to."
-The Art of Living by Epictetus
From: Twitter [mailto:noreply@twitter.com]
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 7:50 PM
To: john@johnfenzel.com
Subject: God is now following you on Twitter!
Hi, johnfenzel.
God (god) is now following your updates on Twitter.
Check out God's profile here:
http://twitter.com/god
You may follow God as well by clicking on the "follow" button.
Best,
Twitter
--
Turn off these emails at: http://twitter.com/account/notifications
If you haven't had an opportunity to read this past Sunday's edition of New York Time Magazine, there are a few excellent articles in it. The first is by Clive Thompson, about the social media explosion and how it has changed the way we interact (the other one that stood out is Talibanistan, about the war in Afghanistan). Thompson's article is summarized below. If you would like to read the entire article, CLICK HERE. Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it "ambient awareness." It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does--body language, sighs, stray comments--out of the corner of your eye. This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update--each individual bit of social information--is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a suprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. "It's an aggregate phenomenon.... No message is the single-most-important-message. ...merely looking at a stranger's Twitter or Facebook feed isn't interesting, because it seems like blather. Follow it for a day, though, and it begins to feel like a short story; follow it for a month, and it's a novel." -Marc Davis, Chief Scientist at Yahoo Constant online contact had made those ties immeasurably richer, but it hadn't actually increased the number of them. Deep relationships are still predicated on face time, and there are only so many hours in the day for that. ...Psychological studies have confirmed that human groupings naturally tail off at around 150 people: the "Dunbar Number," as it is known. Are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can so easily keep track of so many people? [Catarina Fake, a founder of Flickr] has about 400 people she follows online but suspects many of those relationships are tissue-fragile. "These technologies allow you to be much more broadly friendly, but you just spread yourself much more thinly over many more people." But there is another--quite different--result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you're feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philisophical act. It's like the Greek dictum to "know thyself," or the therapeutic concept concept of mindfulness....the status update as a literary form.... In an age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself.
"If I were to be in a position to send food aid to starving children in Burma...I would send in food aid in the bomb bays of military aircraft, and distribute it in that way....The Burmese armed forces dare not intervene....and the world would applaud!"
-Graham (aka "Dayrider")
A Blogger from Perth, Australia
What a brilliant Idea! I don't see any downside to that course of action, do you?
I've been a member of Squidoo for about two years now, and thanks to Seth Godin's sheer genius, I (still) believe it's one of the best social networking, information and people-focused sites on the net. If you have an intense interest in a given subject (I know you do!), why not Join Squidoo?
Whether your interest is in making $$$ or just sharing information, Squidoo is the place to be! With well over 200,000 lenses and counting, Squidoo is fun and the people who populate it are tremendous!
So! CLICK HERE to Join Squidoo!
This is still a work in progress, but here is My Public Pageflakes Page!
I've found this to be the best launching point for a tailored series of RSS updates to start each day. Feel free to bookmark the page for your own use; or better yet, start your own page!
This column exerpt from USN&WR Columnist, Bonnie Erbe, lamenting the ever-expanding blogosphere and "self-appointed, abecedarian pundits:"
"Internet punditry has many strong points. But it lacks at least one element that makes old-fashioned print punditry so vastly superior: editing. Nothing can replace a second set of eyes or a third or fourth rewrite. Writing improves when writers are asked how and where they get her facts and whether this or that point is a bit off the wall. Internet punditry has opened the pipeline but diluted the quality of the product."More is not always better. But more is what we have.
Ms. Erbe describes herself this way:
Bonnie Erbe has covered Washington politics since God was a baby. Because of that, and the fact that she's a native New Yorker, nothing much surprises her anymore. She has covered Congress, the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, and occasionally the White House for radio and television networks. She also hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe, and writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service. "To the Contrary" will allow you to lift the curtain of partisanship for a refreshingly non-partisan perspective on politics, the environment, religion, and issues that affect the lives of women, families, and communities of color.
Since God was a baby??? Wouldn't you say that descriptor is "a bit off the wall," Bonnie? How many rewrites, I wonder, did it take to write that? Or is this what you would classify as "vastly superior old-fashioned print punditry" that offers a refreshing perspective on religion and the lives of women?
Okay, I admit it, I had to look up "abecedarian." Here's what Dictionary.com had to say:
4 results for: abecedarian
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the WebDictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
a·be·ce·dar·i·an /ˌeɪbisiˈdɛəriən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ey-bee-see-dair-ee-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a person who is learning the letters of the alphabet.
2. a beginner in any field of learning.
–adjective 3. of or pertaining to the alphabet.
4. arranged in alphabetical order.
5. rudimentary; elementary; primary.Also, abecedary.
--------------------------------------------------------[Origin: 1595–1605; < ML abecedāriānus. See abecedary, -an]
Dear Ms. Erbe: If your message is that bloggers are beginners, have only a rudimentary understanding of events, with only elementary understanding of the world around us, or are somehow alphabetically challenged, I'd respectfully suggest you rethink your...abecedary assumptions. Your comments have the pungent aroma of arrogance and contempt for the rest of us "rogues." It's okay to think that way, but if you write it, you own it...and then you may as well wear it, as the rogues with looms would say....
I leave you with this classic tale from Hans Christian Anderson (as you recall, there is a moral to the story!):
One day two rogues arrived in town, claiming to be gifted weavers. They convinced the Emperor that they could weave the most wonderful cloth, which had a magical property. The clothes were only visible to those who were completely pure in heart and spirit.The Emperor was impressed and ordered the weavers to begin work immediately. The rogues, who had a deep understanding of human nature, began to feign work on empty looms.
Minister after minister went to view the new clothes and all came back exhorting the beauty of the cloth on the looms even though none of them could see a thing.
Finally a grand procession was planned for the Emperor to display his new finery. The Emperor went to view his clothes and was shocked to see absolutely nothing, but he pretended to admire the fabulous cloth, inspect the clothes with awe, and, after disrobing, go through the motions of carefully putting on a suit of the new garments.
Under a royal canopy the Emperor appeared to the admiring throng of his people - - all of whom cheered and clapped because they all knew the rogue weavers' tale and did not want to be seen as less than pure of heart.
But, the bubble burst when an innocent child loudly exclaimed, for the whole kingdom to hear, that the Emperor had nothing on at all. He had no clothes.
As for us bloggers, well, you can just call us "Rogues with Looms...."
A Web 2.0: The Global Impact study by Universal McCann says that there are 80 million bloggers and the number is still rising. With only 26% surveyed actually writing a blog, the potential for more growth is staggering. Mainstream media has known for some time that their market share was losing ground to the internet--and this is a telling indicator of what they can expect in months and years to come as more people secure their voices on their own weblogs. In their own bid for survival, watch for more and more reporters to become bloggers and newspapers to become sponsors for them. The political implications are equally significant. With China as the world's largest blogging market, certainly Chinese officials are now asking themselves whether the blogosphere could be the next Tiananman Square....
Blogs are set to become mainstream media with more than 80 million people aged 16 to 44 writing one. The finding comes from Web 2.0: The Global Impact, a study by Universal McCann into the consumer adoption of web 2.0 and associated technology like social networks and podcasts.The study, claimed to be the largest of its type, interviewed 16,000 frequent web users aged 16 to 44 in 15 markets. The study found 48 per cent of respondents had visited a blog; 26 per cent wrote one; and 20 per cent planned to start one. China is the world's biggest blogging market with 25 million people writing one; more than double the number in the US. This is well ahead of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, which share five million.
Social networking continues to gain momentum with 69 per cent sharing photos online, while 74 per cent have reviewed a product or service. However, podcasts and RSS have failed to make an impact, with just 17.4 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, having downloaded or subscribed to these services. Tom Smith, EMEA senior research executive at Universal McCann, said: "The changing internet is radically altering users' media habits the world over ... these are real challenges that brand owners and media companies must face up to now - not in 10 years' time."
