Trying to follow

A friend mentioned this book and I thought I’d probably be worth my while to pick it up and give it a read. So, I grabbed Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, by Bill Cosby, from the library and gave it a quick read. It was decent, but I’m not sure how I feel about it overall, this is a review, not an endorsement of Cosby or the book.

As Cosby has begun speaking out on issues within the black community, the biggest critique he’s received is that the issues he’s addressing our ‘in house’ issues, for the black community, not society at large. He’s airing the dirty laundry in front of everyone, which leaves justification for the society at large not to address more systemic issues. Basically, his speaking out gives many white people a token person of color to point to that they agree with, and let’s them off the hook from addressing the issues of systemic racism that they are in a position to address. And, in large part, I’d agree with this critique.

The book is good. It covers a lot of issues, suggests solutions, encourages action, but overall I think it was a poor choice of medium for the message. I don’t believe the book will reach it’s intended audience. Interestingly, I’ve only heard Cosby’s name and his statements referenced by white people, when his audience is clearly African American’s who have been the victims of oppression for years.

So, whether you read this book or not, understand this it isn’t intended to let anyone off the hook. It should simply be an encouragement to everyone that we are all working on and making an effort to address the problems that exist in our neighborhoods and communities.

A couple quotes I found interesting. The first is to counter what people commonly refer to as Cosby’s critique of Hip-Hop. He actually has some positive things to say about Hip-Hop; his critique is mainly against the misogynistic, violent, drug-promoting and demeaning lyrics of some more popular rap music. Here is a brief quote:

Expressions like “right on,” “give me some skin,” “give me a high five,” not to mention “cool” and “hip” and “jazz” for that matter, all drive from the black experience. No ethnic roup in America has had nearly our influence on spoken English, much of it energizing. In music, the use of black vernacular in the lyrics of blues, jazz, and today’s hip-hop are a part of the richness of American culture that has been embraced by people around the world. Black people can be proud of their contributions to American language and speech.

And this one I just appreciated,

Parents and caregivers, have you heard a kid say, “well, I can either flip burgers or go out here and make some real money selling drugs?” When you hear that, do you stop the child and say, “Wait a minute, fool. You don’t flip burgers for the rest of your life. You flip them to become the manager of the place. You flip burgers to move from manager to owner of the damn franchise”?

You have to say this to your kids more than once. So do their teachers. If the kids give you lip, ask them to identify a middle-aged, home-owning drug-dealing grandpa with a family that loves him. That will keep them quiet-and busy.

That’s for you folks who work and raise kids who brought up that question, not for those standing from afar critiquing the community.

This might be cheating but I’ll do it anyways. I read God For President (not to be confused with Jesus For President), by Lisa Venable. I was actually assigned it for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, which I’ve been writing for recently, and Lisa is a local author. So, I read it and reviewed it here: Pious parable parses presidential politics (long title, I didn’t think up). I’ll even give you the intro here:

Recent political events have shown us that Americans are open to more than just the status quo. Minnesota elected the first Muslim to Congress, the Democratic primaries saw a woman and an African-American competing to be the presidential nominee, and environmental concerns have shown up on the political and corporate radar. With all this progress, the storyline in Minneapolis author Lisa Venable’s new book might not be all that far-fetched. The title? God For President: A Parable About the Power of Love.

In Venable’s novel, God becomes incarnate as Mary Love, a mysterious woman who shows up out of nowhere and makes a run for the Oval Office. The story follows Sarah Rose, a young but disillusioned activist who’s all but given up on the political system until Love shows up and reignites Rose’s passion.

Now, your already halfway through the review, so you might as well go and finish reading at the Daily Planet.

That’s pretty much my book review, but I’ll give you a couple further thoughts on the book. It is not at all an exclusively Christian book, or any other religious subscription (besides thiest). However, as someone who believes in the God of the Bible and Jesus as God in the flesh, I thought this book was a pretty radical modern day parable of what a more modern contextualized Jesus might look like to some degree. What’s unfortunate is that stories like these have to be fictional parables rather then common real-life examples.

I asked Michael from The Ooze if it would be okay if I went ahead and made some badges and tried to put together a semi-official list of those who are part of the Ooze Select Blogger group. This will hopefully allow people to read a variety of reviews on the materials that we are sent. Basically the list of blogs below are bloggers who were selected by The Ooze to receive books from publishers and authors to review and blog about (obviously in hopes of creating interest and buzz around their particular book).

I wasn’t given an official list, so we’ll let the Blogosphere do it’s magic and allow those who are Select bloggers to discover this post, comment below so I can add you, and steal the Select Blogger Badge below.

I’m starting the list with the first ten select bloggers I can find via a google blog search. There are 50 out there so try and find your way over and I’ll add to the list as you comment.

The Ooze Select Blogger List (In no particular order):

1. Rev. Todd
2. Consuming Worship
3. Blake Huggins
4. Trying to Follow
5. Recliner Ramblings
6. Some Strange Ideas
7. Solar Crash
8. Todd Littleton
9. Julie Clawson
10. Calacirian
11. Notes From Off Center
12. Keeping Feet
13. Swinging From The Vine
14. Intercession City
15. Gavin
16. Blind Beggar
17. Sally’s Journey
18. If God Is Love
19. Sensual Jesus
20. What Canst Thou Say?
21. Into The Subversion
22. Some Strange Ideas
23. Kingdom Grace
24. Jonathan Merritt
25. And More to come….

A note to select bloggers: If you are planning on tagging or categorizing your Ooze Book reviews in some fashion, please post the url to that category or tag page on your blog rather then just the blog url itself. I figure ’select’ bloggers ought to be web-savvy enough to get the badge on their own page, but let me know if you need help. (I would appreciate it if you would copy the image to your own server).

My friend, Bryan, recommended this book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture, by Shane Hipps and I picked it up from the library about a week ago. It was a phenomenal and very insightful read, which I’d highly recommend to anyone in church leadership or church anything.

The book basically talks about taking a step back from media (and it uses this term broadly) and considering the impact the media itself has on us, rather then just considering the message we communicate through it. For example, we tend to think of Television as evil when it promotes drugs and violence, but good when it promotes christian evangelism; but as for the television itself we tend to consider it a neutral entity. Hipps points out that no piece of media is neutral it all has an impact on us as individuals and as a culture. The advent of the printing press brought about the age of individualism, you need only look at the protestant reformation (sola scriptura) to get an historical understanding of that.

Hipps references a lot of Marshall McLuhan as the sort of resident expert on the subject, he’s the guy who said:

The Medium is the message.

McLuhan also said:

“The content or message of any particular medium has about as much importance as the stenciling on the casing of an atomic bomb.”

The point he was making is the the media we use has huge implications that we tend to ignore. The message is important, but if we aren’t aware of the impact of the medium it will have dangerous implications.

I’m going to begin writing and reflecting on quotes from books I’ve been reading in future blog posts, so stay tuned for a few from this book. And remember to pick up a copy from your local library some time.

You can read this article by Shane Hipps to get a taste for the book, or check out his website.

I read this book, Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, by Susan Gregory Thomas, and I would highly highly recommend it, regardless of if your a parent or not.

Not only does the book give you a behind the scenes look at the multi-billion dollar business of marketing to children, but it gives you statistics and awareness that will infuriate you. Here are some examples.

Program Length Commercials. The industry calls them PLCs and they are pretty much all the shows you and I grew up on. I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m going to. Your favorite kids shows and nostalgic heroes, GI Joes, Strawberry Shortcake, Gummi Bears, He-Man, TMNT, Transformers, Smurfs, and on and on, they where/are all commercials. In a brilliant marketing move, advertisers have created half hour long, enticing and engaging commercials, that will make you fall in love with the characters, and, of course, buy all of their licensed products. The kids going to want a GI Joe lunchbox, a Bratz halloween costume, and He-Man underwear. You’ve been had, and your kids will too if you don’t watch out.

Disney wants Your Money. Sure, you might think the Disney princess thing is cute, but it’s also a strategic marketing and branding campaign to hook customers at a young age. If they can hook a kid when they are young that kid (and their parents) will spend over $100,000 over the course of their lifetime on Disney related products.

Baby Einstein Is A Scam. First of all, the whole “Mozart Effect” has no relevance to babies (the study was originally done with a small group of college students, and similar studies on babies show no unique results). Baby Einstein videos, and other merchandise have never been proven to be educational, in fact, the reverse might be true (Baby Einstein makes kids dumb).

There is a bunch more in this book, but I’ll just leave it for you to enjoy when you pick up your own copy. Seriously, read this book.