I've Moved

Since I've spent the last several years as a Wordpress Power User and then a Wordpress Developer for the last year, I thought it was time to move my personal blog to that platform. So catch me over here.

Will It Work?

In a recent article on Slate, the thinking seems to be that mothers will decide whether their healthy sons will get coverage. I agree with the logic, and for the record, this mother is still pondering the wisdom of encouraging her son to be even more subjected to the government's sway over his health care. And the same goes for my healthy grown daughters.

Do You Read Frank?

A couple of years ago I started an anonymous blog (to those who follow the blog, it's still anonymous to everyone else). I gained a few thousand followers and over 1/2 million hits (views). But I say all of that to hopefully make the point that followers and views are not necessarily indicative of quality. My blog is somewhat fluff and quite often not thoughtful. I usually write by the seat of my pants. Yet there is an intelligent and thoughtful blogger I admire and love to read, who might just be my favorite all-around blogger, and he only has ten followers and probably less than a tenth of the hits I have. I could be wrong about the latter, but I've looked at some stats on his site, and it doesn't seem he's well-known.

That's stunning to me, and so I'm compelled this morning to introduce Frank Thompson. And a proviso. As with all blogs and other writings, I don't agree with everything someone writes. What a dull place this would be if we were all in lock step on our thoughts, but I appreciate Frank's mind and most important, he always makes me think. Without further ado, I give you All Things Wildly Considered.

No Bushel for Tommy

Recently, an online friend turned me onto Tommy Emmanuel. And now I can't stop listening to and looking at this: Certainly, he is a fantastic musician, but it's the joy he exudes that has me continually fascinated with what he's doing.

Here's another one:

I was so moved by his unabashed pleasure in playing, I looked up some background on him and discovered he's a believer!

And Tommy's revealed something about how he sees performing, "It's my job to get out and play the guitar and let God do the rest. Stay out of his way. Just play the guitar and do what you're meant to do. That's my job."

May we all have such humility and joy in our jobs.

One more and a wonderful word from Tommy about playing and living:

That just never gets old.

Tommy will be in Denver sometime in February 2014. Details will be forthcoming on his site.

This one was for you, Bob. :D

The Face of God -- Part 1

I just got a note from Frank Warren announcing the advent of the Post Secret app in September and the encouragement to share it with whomever:



For years I've sat in rooms with comfortable chairs and pillows and tissues so that people would feel some ease when they wanted to pour out the secrets that ate at their souls, and for the ones who were able to bring their secrets to light and gain the clarity to see how to remove the power of the secrets, it's been encouraging. Yet all of this was done while they knew I was in the room with them and more significantly, that they knew we would later run into each other on the street or at the post office, or in the grocery store.

Enter Frank who for six years has placed himself in the room but in a way that allows people to save face -- literally. He started the PostSecret Project in 2005 as an outlet for those who needed to give vent to something or to share a joy (those are few and far between). People may mail him a postcard decorated any way they like, and every Sunday 20 of the cards are posted on the PostSecret blog. Considering the 1,000+ postcards a week that Frank receives, it seems there is a great need for people to bare their souls, and the desire to do this is growing.

Much of it is the need to be absolved, and all of it is the need to be understood. There is almost no greater hell than to go through life misunderstood and feeling condemned and PostSecret gives people the ability to achieve some sort of clarity and absolution if only to know someone else is thinking about their secret. It makes sense when I consider that I've yet to meet but a very small group of people who do not feel this need, and of that minority, they are usually anti-social. Some believe we have created God in various forms to deal with the need. I've wondered a time or two (oh, heck a lot more than a time or two) if some of those people pouring their hearts out in front of me didn't do it just to have me serve as a temporary god for them.

Diaspora, a KickStarter Darling

For over a year now I have been bemoaning Facebook's assault on its users' privacy, and thankfully, the din is growing. But from the beginning of Facebook trampling on its users, I've wondered if someone was going to come quickly with their offering of a site that has many of the advantages of Facebook without the tricks. Aah! that may soon be upon us! Yep, you may still be able to easily share with your friends and family without having to hide from the continual stripping Facebook gives you.

The lovely site KickStarter has been helping to promote the innovative among us who don't make the circuit with VC guys. It's a sort of collective angel investor in cyber world to which you have to be invited, and recently they invited a group launching what hopefully will be a comfortable alternative to Facebook. Oh, you're done with that? Think again. Social media, and especially sites such as Facebook, are eclipsing the phone and the post office, so I'm not so sure it's that easy to give up. There was a time when I thought I could walk away from Facebook. But my angst about it bordering on downright hatred during the last year has not been enough to make me leave it. The richness and ease of staying in touch with family is hard to give it up. But now there may be a better way.

Diaspora is a project being launched by four students at NYU. It's a sort of twist on the Cloud. I'm not quite sure how it works yet, but my curiosity is killing me. Need to go read on it some more, but in the meantime, I'll let the young men tackling this idea speak for themselves:



Thoughts about the video:

It might be a little scary to think of having your own "node," but maybe it's time you got in the 21st century and learned how to control your cyber information, or someone else will control it. Frankly, this idea will probably be old hat in a few years, so why not get on board now? If you're interested in being part of the test program for Disapora, you can get on their mailing list, and they may send you an invite. Invites start today.