Monday Roundup

SEA LION INVASION
An ornery mob of sea lions have established themselves along southern California's ritzy Newport Beach, upsetting the human residents with their 24/7 barking, by sinking a sail boat they piled onto, breaking windows, and sunning themselves on expensive yachts. The species is protected and the only known effective means for controlling the 600+ pound animals are illegal. Link


WHY GOD LOVES NEW ORLEANS
Terry Mattingly's column -- in a nutshell -- diversity and the fact that the light is brightest in dark places.


INTELLIGENCE IN THE INTERNET AGE
The age-old question: Does technology make us smarter or lazier and dumber? An even better question: Does it make us wiser?


FLY OVER AFRICA
National Geographic overlay for Google Earth.


ANOTHER PERSONALIZED START PAGE OPTION
Still in beta, not very flashy -- but very functional -- Netvibes


HOW TO BE A BLOGGER
Time magazine article on the most up-to-date basics. I break several of the rules. Oh well, I'm having fun. And blogging is therapeutic.


BLOGGING -- HOPE IN EVANGELICALISM
Michael Spencer presented a paper, An Optimistic View of Blogging Evangelicalism: Community, Confessional Conversations and Adventures In Self-Criticism, at the Civitas Conference: "After Evangelicalism," at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday. The paper is online and worthy of a few minutes of your time.

A few snippets:

• This is the same adventure that allows every self-ordained preacher to begin a storefront church, a one man radio program and, eventually, a seminary in a 7-11. There are some evangelicals who worry about this, but bloggers will say that the great romance of blogging is the ability of one person with a few thoughts to create something that can look and sound- in its given medium- as credible as Christianity Today or Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. In fact, the heart of blogging is something that may be quite important: the power of self -publishing. By this, I mean the ability of any individual with access to a computer to publish a blog at no cost, to write whatever he or she pleases with no editorial controls at all, and to garner a readership for that blog based on factors that often have nothing to do with how "real" published authors are perceived.
  
  
• From, therefore, my perspective as a layman, I will explore three optimistic considerations for evangelicalism's possible blogged future. First, blogging has demonstrated the power to contribute to some level of community around the virtues of vulnerability and transparency. Second, blogging is a remarkable tool for the shaping of the confessional conversation that is essential to the health of evangelicalism. Third, blogging is a remarkable means for the difficult and usually avoided ministry of self-criticism within evangelicalism.