I will soon be having a break from Blogging as I am scheduled to undergo surgery in the near future, so early November is shaping as a lean period for my various Blogs. However, it is quite possible that there will be a large number of posts once I am able to sit comfortably in front of my computer again. I expect there will be no posts for possibly the first week of November. Up until November there will be short periods of no posts, with the various preparations required previous to surgery.
Tag Archives: Blogging
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Back Very Soon
Hi all – my previous post suggested I would be away for about a week or so because of pneumonia. It turns out my absence was for a whole lot longer than that. I ended up with Double Pneumonia twice in 6 weeks and it has been a struggle to recover. I am feeling much better now and hope to return to Blogging over the next week, posting to each again over that time. Thanks for your patience.
Pakistan: Arrests Made for Shooting of 14-Year-Old Blogger
In recent days the world has been shocked yet again by Taliban thugs who shot a 14-year-old girl in the head because of her blogging posts which were critical of the Taliban and promoted the education of females. It would seem the Taliban were intent on proving the girl correct by their cowardly actions. There have now been some arrests over the shooting, while 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai fights for her life in hospital.
For more visit:
http://global.christianpost.com/news/arrests-made-in-taliban-ordered-shooting-of-14-year-old-activist-83164/
Schoolgirl’s Food Blog is Back
I’m Back: Much Needed Break Over
My massive break is over and I’ll be trying to get back into Blogging and other aspects of life online over the next few weeks. There will be some breaks over the ‘silly season,’ but I’m hoping normal service is being resumed.
Hopefully there will be some improvements along the way as well.
New rule: Take time to explain what this is all about.
Take time to explain what this is all about.
This is a new service started at Plinky (go to plinky.com for more information). In short it is a Blogging prompting service. Plinky asks a question and you then write a Blog about it. I thought I might give it a twirl and see what happen with it.
Use Plinky at least once a day – if you want to.
That’s what I’ll be doing for the next little while at least – along with the ordinary Blog posts as well.
Decline of traditional media
Should the threat to traditional media from the internet really be a cause for concern?
The new social media — blogging, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube are current faves — revolutionising the publishing world, for better and worse. Let’s look at both the better and the worse in perspective.
The current tsunami of personal choices in communication is slowly draining the profit from mainstream media. These media traditionally depend on huge audiences who all live in one region and mostly want the same things (the football scores, the crossword, the TV Guide, etc.). But that is all available now on the Internet, all around the world, all the time.
One outcome is a death watch on many newspapers, including famous ones like the Boston Globe. As journalist Paul Gillin noted recently: “The newspaper model scales up very well, but it scales down very badly. It costs a newspaper nearly as much to deliver 25,000 copies as it does to deliver 50,000 copies. Readership has been in decline for 30 years and the decline shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, new competition has sprung up online with a vastly superior cost structure and an interactive format that appeals to the new generation of readers.”
Traditional electronic media are not doing any better. As James Lewin observes in “Television audience plummeting as viewers move online” (May 19, 2008), mainstream broadcasters “will have to come to terms with YouTube, video podcasts and other Internet media or they’ll face the same fate as newspapers.”
Radio audiences have likewise tanked. Overall, the recent decline of traditional media is remarkable.
Some conservative writers insist that mainstream media’s failure is due to its liberal bias. But conservatives have charged that for decades — to no effect. Another charge is that TV is declining because it is increasingly gross or trivial. True enough, but TV’s popularity was unaffected for decades by its experiments with edgy taste.
Let’s look more closely at the structure of the system to better understand current steep declines. Due to the low cost of modern media technology, no clear distinction now exists between a mainstream medium and a non-mainstream one, based on either number of viewers or production cost. Today, anyone can put up a video at YouTube at virtually no cost. Popular videos get hundreds of thousands of views. Podcasting and videocasting are also cheap. A blog can be started for free, within minutes, at Blogger. It may get 10 viewers or 10,000, depending on the level of popular interest. But the viewers control that, not the providers.
The key change is that the traditional media professional is no longer a gatekeeper who can systematically admit or deny information. Consumers program their own print, TV, or radio, and download what they want to their personal devices. They are their own editors, their own filmmakers, their own disc jockeys.
Does that mean more bias or less? It’s hard to say, given that consumers now manage their own level of bias. So they can hear much more biased news — or much less. And, as Podcasting News observes, “Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.”
Understandably, traditional media professionals, alarmed by these developments, have constructed a doctrine of “localism” and, in some cases, called for government to bail them out. That probably won’t help, just as it wouldn’t have helped if the media professionals had called for a government “bailed out” of newspapers when they were threatened by radio, or of radio when it was threatened by TV. Video really did (sort of) kill the radio star, but the radio star certainly won’t be revived by government grants.
Still, the news is not all bad. Yes, new media do sometimes kill old media. For example, no one seriously uses pigeon post to send messages today. But few ever thought birdmail was a great system, just the only one available at the time. However, radio did not kill print, and TV did not kill radio. Nor will the Internet kill older media; it will simply change news delivery. Sometimes in a minor way, but sometimes radically.
Media that work, whether radio, TV, newspapers, books, blogs, or any other, thrive when there is a true need. Today’s challenge is to persuade the consumer to look at alternatives to their own programming decisions.
Denyse O’Leary is co-author of The Spiritual Brain.
The original news article can be viewed at:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/decline_of_traditional_media/
Article from MercatorNet.com
REFORMED PARTICULAR BAPTIST FELLOWSHIP
The ‘Reformed Particular Baptist Fellowship’ community (social network / group) is a Particular and Reformed Baptist Community, providing a wonderful opportunity for members to communicate, interact, contribute and fellowship with other Particular and Reformed Baptists from around the world. We also welcome other Reformed brethren to our community, but ask you to always remember that this is a ‘Baptistic’ group and it will therefore reflect the distinctives of such believers as expressed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
There are actually two sites in this community. This is our new and main site. The other site is at http://particularbaptist.ning.com/ (on the Ning Platform), where the community first begun. Eventually I hope to have the site completely contained here on the Grou.ps platform. Because Grou.ps allows very limited customisation of member profiles I have decided to keep the Ning site going for the time being, with the hope that members of the first site will move to Grou.ps when they are comfortable to do so (the Ning site will then be closed). Should members of the community choose to continue on both sites for the time being, it will be necessary to switch between sites, perhaps having two tabs open in your browser).
Please have a look around the site and familiarise yourself with all that is on offer. This platform is in ‘Beta’ development, meaning there is still some way to go before it is fully functional and all features are working in a stable manner (so please be patient).
I would encourage all members of the community to become actively involved and contribute regularly, thereby making our community all the stronger and vibrant.
Introducing Community Features:
At the top of the page is the directory menu if you like. These ‘buttons’ will take you to the main sections of the community and appear on most pages within the community (except at Ning of course). In brief, this is what you will find within the community at each of these locations:
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My Page: This location is a members individual profile page, including such things as a comment wall and a record of your recent activity within the community.
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Mems: This location shows all the members of the community.
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Maps: This location allows for members of the community to plot their current location on a map, etc.
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Calendar: This location allows community members to mark events on a calendar, pass on event details, etc.
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Wiki: This location is the ‘Particular Baptist Systematic Theology Encyclopedia’ wiki, which works in in a similar fashion as Wikipedia.
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Forum: This is a location to discuss various questions and topics raised by community members.
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Blog: This is a Blog that is open to all community members to post on – sort of like an ‘open mic’ type approach to Blogging.
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Files: This is a location for community members to share files with other community members, such as books, articles, slideshows, presentations, etc.
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Links: This is a place for community members to share links they have found useful.
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Photo: This is a place for community members to share photos with one another.
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Video: This is a place for community members to share videos with one another.
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Music: This is a place for community members to share music with one another.
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Groups: This is a place for community members to set up there own groups within the community – you may have a Bible Study Group, a Church Group, etc.
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Contact: This is a place to contact administration.
In short, I am very hopeful that this community location will be far superior to that of the previous. Please join and grow with us.
Visit Reformed Particular Baptist Fellowship at:
http://grou.ps/particularbaptist/home
Visit the network’s ‘parent’ web site at:
http://particularbaptist.com/
Kevin – founder of the Reformed Particular Baptist Fellowship
SAUDI ARABIA: AUTHORITIES RELEASE CHRISTIAN BLOGGER
Kingdom silences convert, prohibits him from leaving country.
LOS ANGELES, April 16 (Compass Direct News) – In a surprise move, a Saudi Christian arrested in January for describing his conversion from Islam and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his blog site was released on March 28 with the stipulation that he not travel outside of Saudi Arabia or appear on media.
Hamoud Saleh Al-Amri (previously reported as Hamoud Bin Saleh), 28, reportedly attributed his release to advocacy efforts by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). The Cairo-based organization had campaigned for his release along with other rights groups, reported Christian advocacy organization Middle East Concern (MEC).
Gamal Eid, director of ANHRI, told Compass by telephone that he believed his organization had nothing to do with Al-Amri’s release. Rather, he said he believed officials were loath to keep a person of questionable mental stability in prison.
“He is mentally not stable, because he had the courage to say in his blog that he is a Christian,” Eid said. “Anyone in his right mind in Saudi Arabia wouldn’t do that.”
The country’s penalty for “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, is death, although in recent years there have been no known cases of kingdom citizens formally convicted and sentenced with capital punishment for the offense.
This was not the first imprisonment for Al-Amri. He was detained in 2004 for nine months and in 2008 for one month before he was re-arrested on Jan. 13 of this year, and Eid said the young blogger was tortured during the first two incarcerations.
Al-Amri’s treatment during this latest imprisonment is unknown. After his previous releases he had contacted Eid’s office, but the ANHRI director said he has not done so since being released from Riyadh’s Eleisha prison, known for its human rights abuses.
“He was mistreated the first two times he was imprisoned, but this time I don’t know, because he hasn’t contacted me,” said Eid. “In the past he was mistreated with sleep deprivation, prolonged solitary confinement and a continuous barrage of physical torture and insults.”
The advocate added that it is likely Al-Amri was mistreated during his recent imprisonment.
“I consider anyone who declares his religion to be anything than Islam to be extremely brave and courageous, but this extreme courage bordering on carelessness is madness, because he knows what could happen in Saudi,” Eid said. “I’m not a doctor, but I find this extreme.”
Al-Amri has become isolated from his family and lives alone, Eid said, but he said he was unable to comment on the convert’s current situation.
Blog Blocked
Following Al-Amri’s latest arrest, MEC reported, Saudi authorities blocked access to his blog inside Saudi Arabia. Google then locked it, claiming there was a technical violation of terms of service. On Feb. 5 it was reportedly restored due to public pressure – after his March 28 release, Al-Amri had credited his release to ANHRI’s efforts on his blog, www.christforsaudi.blogspot.com – but yesterday Compass found the site did not work.
Eid said he was not surprised the blog was blocked.
“That’s what I expected,” he said. “But he will probably start another blog – it’s not difficult.”
Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy restricts media and other forms of public expression, though authorities have shown some tolerance for criticism and debate since King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud officially ascended to the throne in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of State.
“Arabic countries are the worst on the list of censoring the Internet and are at the top of the list of antagonizing the freedom of the Internet,” said Eid. “But the Internet is still a good venue, because people are still able to express their views despite the government’s effort to curtail their efforts.”
In his blog prior to his arrest, Al-Amri had criticized the government for quashing individual rights.
“A nation which lives in this system cannot guarantee the safety of its individuals,” he wrote. “Preserving their rights from violation will always be a matter of concern, as the rights of a citizen, his dignity and humanity will always be subject to abuse and violation by those few who have absolute immunity provided to them by the regime.”
Eid of ANHRI described lack of civil law in Saudi Arabia as “extreme.” Citizens can be tortured endlessly, he said, adding that Saudis who openly state Christian faith face severe danger.
Although there have been recent moves towards reform, Saudi Arabia restricts political expression and allows only a strict version of Sunni Islam to be publicly practiced, according to MEC.
Political critic Fouad Ahmad al-Farhan became the first Saudi to be arrested for Web site postings on Dec. 10, 2007; he was released in April 2008.
Eid said he believes the lenient action of the Saudi authorities is a welcome move in a country where “there is no such thing as religious freedom.” In fact the move could encourage people of other faiths to speak up.
“This will open the door to whoever wants to express his belief, whether Christian, Hindu or other,” he said.
Saudis who choose a faith other than Islam and express it may face extra-judicial killings. In August 2008, a 26-year-old woman was killed for disclosing her faith on a Web site. Fatima Al-Mutairi reportedly had revealed on Web postings that she had left Islam to become a Christian.
Gulfnews.com reported on Aug. 12, 2008 that her father, a member of the religious police or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, cut out her tongue and burned her to death “following a heated debate on religion.” Al-Mutairi had written about hostilities from family members after they discovered she was a Christian, including insults from her brother after he saw her Web postings about her faith. Some reports indicated that her brother was the one who killed her.
She had reportedly written an article about her faith on a blog of which she was a member under the nickname “Rania” a few days before her murder.
Report from Compass News Direct
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