James Gandolfini and the Cultural Autopsy. . . .
I never realized just how beloved James Gandolfini was until he died last week. Actors, musicians, and other pop culture celebrities are passing away all the time. But for some reason, Gandolfini’s death and the response to it caught my…
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Are We Systematically Killing Our Selves? . . .
Don’t you just love those “get smacked up side the head” moments? I had one this morning as a result of the convergence of Bible, book, and newspaper. It was a nexus that has given me such personal pause about…
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The Need For “Smartphone Control” . . . It’s All About Wisdom. . . .
It’s said that “wisdom comes with age.” That’s true. . . I think and hope. . . especially as I get older! I’m convinced that the more accurate statement is that “wisdom comes with endeavor.” I’m thinking here of the…
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Matthew Warren, His Family, And Guidelines For The Rest of Us. . . .
I’m not sure that I’ve ever wrestled with the title and content of a blog post with greater care or for a longer amount of time. Nothing about titling this post or developing its content seems right. I don’t know…
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Rutgers Basketball, Sport, and What Ails Us. . .
Anybody who’s watched the news, read the paper, or accessed any online news outlets this week knows that North Korea is making threats, that film critic Roger Ebert has died, and that Rutgers University has some major problems with their…
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Youth Workers, Digital Discernment, and Those Sneaky Isms. . . .
Last Thursday I blogged about the dangers of not paying attention to what life on the digital frontier is doing to us. . . and how getting sidetracked and losing focus can lead to some dangers. Let me propose that…
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The Bible and the Super Bowl. . . .
Most of us watched, didn’t we? And most of us watched the way we normally watch. . . disengaged. . . thoughtlessly. . . seeking to be entertained by the creativity (yes, some really great creativity!) of the stagers, the…
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Youth Workers, Aloneness, and a Grand Experiment. . . .
Last weekend, a perfect storm converged in my life that was quite telling. It all began with an ending. . . . the ending of my slow and deliberate journey through Sherry Turkle’s fascinating, timely, and thought-provoking book Alone Together:…
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Tragic Distractions. . . .
Every once in awhile a series of thoughts and events simultaneously converge to prompt a sense of urgency. That’s happened once again this morning. I went to breakfast thinking about some conversations I had last night after speaking to a…
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Sky Mall and the Human Condition. . . .
So I was continuing my journey through Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together:Why We Expect More From Technology and Less from Each Other on some flights the last couple of days. Fascinating stuff. Turkle is a brilliant thinker and expert in robotics.…
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Parental Diligence Needed Here. . . .
The other day my post asked whether or not the mix of teens and technology is good, bad, or ugly. I think it’s got the potential to be all three. . . powerful potential. Certainly one of the “bad” and…
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Snake Eyes: A Look at Teen Gambling
– by Doug West © 2003, The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding Today’s teenager lives in a world sandwiched between childhood and adulthood. Bombarding teens on all sides are adult “forbidden fruit” temptations that are legally out of reach in terms…
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