the joke being there was no joke

i stumbled upon this article having heard nothing of the joke or even knowing who any of the players are but it really tickled me in a metaphoric kind of way – in a nutshell, i seems like a comedian tweeted an apology for a twitter comment that never existed and then thousands of people got on the bandwagon, lots being sarcastic fans who picked it up and ran with it as if it was real and then along the way a bunch of people who were either applauding him or totally pissed off with him despite never having seen/heard the joke (which was made up and never happened) – the last statement of the article sums it up – be careful about commenting on stuff you know nothing about, but i think the kind of power this episode shows is hilarious slash scary…

check it out here

reminds me of Wag the Dog – classic movie where they invent a whole war (productionwise in the media) to cover up the president’s scandal…

‘raped’ as a fun catch phrase, tweeting tragedy instead of assisting…

what next? leaving the old people outside for the coyotes to finish them off…?

sounds far fetched maybe, but i have just been thoroughly revolted by what i have just read [and i know in this day and age we can get mildly upset and tut tutty and each-to-their-own-device but maybe it’s time for people to stand up and SHOUT WILDLY AGAINST THIS KIND OF FILTH…] and we need to draw a line…

it started with me reading my good buddy Bruce’s rant [totally justified and i agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed] or question [but i know the rant is simmering beneath] about the question of whether there should be a filter on what we tweet, which you can take a look at here:

http://baristabruce.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/who-am-i-allowed-to-chirp-what-am-i-allowed-to-tweet/#comment-302

well actually, to be honest, it began a little earlier with this blog i wrote after my encounter with two horrible t-shirts and then the recent one i wrote about young people using the word “rape” to describe a bad sporting or examination encounter…

but then i went on to yahoo and happened to catch site of the heading of this article where firstly a guy passes out and everyone is too busy tweeting and facebook statusing to go and help him, and later ends with people taking phone pics of a guy as he dies on the street…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101117/sc_yblog_thelookout/if-the-science-guy-passes-out-and-nobody-tweets-it-did-it-happen

as a society we are becoming sicker and sicker and what is the worst part is that it is becoming the norm, it is becoming acceptable – we have legalised abortion (baby-killing) and made divorce easier than getting a visa to fly overseas and our government seems to have an anything goes policy when it comes to government officials being involved in corruption/mismanagement of funds and so on…

where does it all end?

i’ll tell you where it ends. with the church!

will the real Christ followers please stand up? because this is where the call to be holy, to be set apart, to be different is at its most vital…

Engage the young guys who are wearing those shirts. Refuse to let someone get away with a statement of how they were “raped by that exam” without being challenged to never again use that word (and sentence) lightly. Leave your flippin phone in your pocket and go and get up on that stage and see if that man is okay. Shout, scream, make a noise – IT IS NOT OKAY – THIS IS NOT ACCEPTIBLE – I WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT.

Cos there HAS to be a line. And we need to speak and act and react in absolute love and compassion and know when and where and how to speak and act. [and the Holy Spirit will guide us in this area, if we pay attention] But we cannot stay silent any longer!

i like it on my breast cancer awareness campaign

a brilliant response to the latest pathetic facebook/twitter status “i like it on my…” where do you like your purse which is somehow meant to raise awareness for breast cancer campaign…

check it out

kevin “tweet-her”-son

so part of an article explaining south african english cricketer kevin pietersen’s recent twit-ter explosion after being dropped from the national side goes like this:

‘Kevin Pietersen has apologised for the outburst which followed his omission from England’s limited-overs squads for the series against Pakistan.

The 30-year-old batsman announced he had been dropped via Twitter, with his angry tweet including an expletive.

“It came out in the way that I didn’t want it to come out,” said Pietersen.

“It wasn’t meant for the public domain, I apologise for it entering the public domain and I also want to apologise for the language I used.”‘

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/8959247.stm]

firstly, kevin, YOU TYPED IT… or did you? “it came out in the way that i didn’t want it to come out?” – were you dictating your twitter message to your tweeting secretary and somehow she heard you wrong or paraphrased your own words…? was the original quote “i’m not in the team, darn it”?

secondly, “wasn’t meant for the public domain”? well duh, kevin, that’s what twit-ter is – it’s a message that you (or your renegade paraphrasing tweeting secretary) type that GOES OUT INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN… that’s what it is.

thirdly, there in NO…. third thing.

not the God you don’t believe in

so the other nite we were hanging with some mates from church at our place and the giant of the group (aptly named klein (small) frans) came up with this saying “the God i believe in is not the God you don’t believe in” which i think is brilliant and which i blog posted and made my status line on facebook and twitter (some might say ‘overkill’ – i might say ‘collective ramifications’ but just because it’s a nice sounding phrase – go on, say it out loud… not SO loud, you don’t want to freak out the people in the office, sheesh!)

and i was thinking about it this morning briefly (but very quickly – so a lot of thort in a short space of time – i think my mind just works that way when i set it free as i do from time to time) the idea is we’re comparing Christ followers to unbelievers – so the idea or understanding or concept of God that unbelievers have is not a true representation of who God really is and i would go so far as to say that i also don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in (as a quandary, or a corollary, or whatever it’s called, to the original theoretical!)

but then (at an rpm of millions per second per second) [squared] i realised that actually that statement sadly covers a lot of christians as well – or people calling themselves christians at any rate (the ones who may never be accused of excessive Christ following) – i think churches (as in the buildings and the meetings) are filled with people who have a completely skewed picture of who God is and how He sees them and what His intentions are of relationship with them.

and so it’s sad, but i think it’s true, that i can say to a lot of the christians out there, ‘the God i believe in is not the same God you believe in’

for example, my God would not choose religion over relationships ever (as was hugely demonstrated to me on sunday when an old guy in my church went all psycho on me because some kids had got overly excited when communion was happening, and he chose religion over relationship with me, with them, and definitely did not act or speak in love)

the God i love and serve would never insist on you jumping through hoops of any kind to be ‘good enough’ to be worthy of His love and attention and acceptance – He has already done all the hoop-jumping necessary in sending Jesus – the price has been paid, you just need to accept it and live in that freedom

and so on.