Okay, I'm one of those people who grew up listening to Three Dog Night on a transistor A.M. radio, and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.
My love of music and ability to have control over the dial is probably why it seemed so cool. So, you can only imagine the heaven that I am in now that we have glorious Internet radio, on platforms such as Live365.com, Pandora.com, Yahoo! Launchcast and more. Not to mention tons of archived music video on YouTube et al.
My absolute favorite Internet radio station is called modernera.fm. Someone in San Francisco has exquisite musical taste, and programs the songs all day long on the Live365 platform for a nominal fee. In return, they cover all his permissions, royalties etc. What a great time to be alive.
Modernera.fm features classical, jazz and ambient music from the 20th and 21st centuries. It's truly been an horizon-expanding experience for me, as I have enjoyed great artists such as Brian Eno, William Orbit, The Aqua Velvets, Blue Man Group and more. I've even bought some of the tracks I've heard via download or CD.
Modernera.fm is just one of millions of burgeoning new stations on these exciting Internet platforms. Long live Internet Radio!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Mr. Deity
Okay, I am laughing with a great sense of guilt, but laughing all the same at Mr. Deity, another hilarious new web series looking at God's plan as seen through the eyes of man.
Or is it man's plan, as seen through the eyes of God? I'm not sure.
Similar in spirit to God, Inc. which I described in a previous post, Mr. Deity portrays the workings of universe as organized by a trinity of all-too-human individuals resembling the staff of a showbiz startup. (Which is what they really are!)
Mr. Deity is an aging, absent-minded hipster, "Jesse" (a.k.a. "Jesus") is a dim-witted metrosexual, and Larry a nebbishy administrative type.
And then there is Lucy, Mr. Deity's bitchy ex.
How am I, a critical-minded believer, supposed to feel about this? Is this show truly a guilty pleasure?
Surely some religious people will be swearing a fatwa out on Mr. Deity. And some atheist/skeptic types, such as Michael Shermer, are already happily endorsing the series for their own reasons.
But if you read the FAQs on the series from its producer and director Brian Keith Dalton, you will see it is decidedly middle-of-the-road, and humor-focused:
"I am a formerly religious person (non-bitter), and as such, have great sympathies for the beliefs and feelings of religious people. I love the fact that they are concerned with the big issues like Good and Evil, Existence, Creation, etc... I don't always agree with the answers they provide to these questions, but I deeply respect their concern. Our goal here is not to mock religion, but to use it as a foundation for the humor. I'm thrilled that so many religious people have written to tell me that they love the episodes. In future episodes, I intend to turn the tables a bit and poke fun at what I call the "angry atheists" (of whom I am not fond). We'll see if they take it so well."
What better way to get some perspective on the silliness of life than to pretend you are divine. It makes perfect sense.
My own feeling about this, and I might be wrong, is that you really can't get offended by too many jokes using a limited view of the deity unless your own view of the deity is rather limited. What do you think?
Or is it man's plan, as seen through the eyes of God? I'm not sure.
Similar in spirit to God, Inc. which I described in a previous post, Mr. Deity portrays the workings of universe as organized by a trinity of all-too-human individuals resembling the staff of a showbiz startup. (Which is what they really are!)
Mr. Deity is an aging, absent-minded hipster, "Jesse" (a.k.a. "Jesus") is a dim-witted metrosexual, and Larry a nebbishy administrative type.
And then there is Lucy, Mr. Deity's bitchy ex.
How am I, a critical-minded believer, supposed to feel about this? Is this show truly a guilty pleasure?
Surely some religious people will be swearing a fatwa out on Mr. Deity. And some atheist/skeptic types, such as Michael Shermer, are already happily endorsing the series for their own reasons.
But if you read the FAQs on the series from its producer and director Brian Keith Dalton, you will see it is decidedly middle-of-the-road, and humor-focused:
"I am a formerly religious person (non-bitter), and as such, have great sympathies for the beliefs and feelings of religious people. I love the fact that they are concerned with the big issues like Good and Evil, Existence, Creation, etc... I don't always agree with the answers they provide to these questions, but I deeply respect their concern. Our goal here is not to mock religion, but to use it as a foundation for the humor. I'm thrilled that so many religious people have written to tell me that they love the episodes. In future episodes, I intend to turn the tables a bit and poke fun at what I call the "angry atheists" (of whom I am not fond). We'll see if they take it so well."
What better way to get some perspective on the silliness of life than to pretend you are divine. It makes perfect sense.
My own feeling about this, and I might be wrong, is that you really can't get offended by too many jokes using a limited view of the deity unless your own view of the deity is rather limited. What do you think?
From Crackle:
Monday, July 9, 2007
Darwin, God and Evil
If you look through the content of this blog, you might say that I am "vexed" by the question of God and evil. Funny then, that I happened to stumble across Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil by Cornelius G. Hunter.
It's a fascinating read, about non-scientific influences upon the theory of evolution - particularly, the theological assumptions about what God would and would not do in the often violent, bloody world of nature.
These assumptions, Hunter argues, stand behind the science of Darwinism, which Hunter also argues, is quite "speculative" in the areas of phylogeny, homology, molecular clocks, etc.
Although "Darwin's God" is accessible, it's not exactly light summer reading. That's okay -- except for my brief Tom Clancy jag back in college and grad school, I've never been much for that anyway.
I'll have more to say about this book once I've finished it off.
It's a fascinating read, about non-scientific influences upon the theory of evolution - particularly, the theological assumptions about what God would and would not do in the often violent, bloody world of nature.
These assumptions, Hunter argues, stand behind the science of Darwinism, which Hunter also argues, is quite "speculative" in the areas of phylogeny, homology, molecular clocks, etc.
Although "Darwin's God" is accessible, it's not exactly light summer reading. That's okay -- except for my brief Tom Clancy jag back in college and grad school, I've never been much for that anyway.
I'll have more to say about this book once I've finished it off.
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