Tea with Hezbollah: I review Ted Dekker for crosswalk.com

Ted Dekker is known for his fiction. But this time, he writes about his own personal experiences interviewing influential Islamic leaders in the Middle East.
What Dekker asks these "enemies" of America may surprise you.

Is this a book for you? Read my review at crosswalk.com.

McReps & McDems Alike Should Cry at Bayh's Goodbye

Cooler heads in Congress head for the exits.

Wow, the current administration and Congress are even too liberal for members of their own party.

Sen. Evan Bayh, a 12 year veteran and moderate Democrat, says he won't run for reelection because Congress "is not operating as it should" and he's tired of the "strident partisanship," CNN reports. Good news for all the Republican fans, right?

Wrong.

I think Bayh and his fellow long-term members on both sides of the aisle see the handwriting on the wall. America's going to be very hard on incumbents this election cycle, Reps and Dems alike. Bayh doesn't want to be the guy who loses his seat to the other team.

The real loser? The American people. Centrist members in both parties have been the quiet workhorses of government for years with their ability to see issues from other points of view and strike deals that suit everyone and not just advance their party's agenda. Now their number is shrinking as the cooler heads in Congress head for the exits.

The increasing polarizing of American politics into only two opposing viewpoints is exceptionally dangerous. Each party will simply resort to exponentially extreme behavior in order to make it clear to voters that, "Hey, at least we're not those other guys." More posturing, less real action by both parties results.

We have decades of disinterested, uninformed voters to thank for giving Reps and Dems the need to caricature themselves and make the choice easy for people who'd rather not have to think too hard. Gone are the days when someone is elected for their personal skills and viewpoints, and not for their party label. 

Now, America votes for their preferred party like they cheer for their favorite sports team or choose their favorite fast food chain. Sure, with McDems and McReps you always know what you're going to get, but what you get won't be very good for you. 

Its easier that way, because all that takes is being able to read the letters "D" and "R" at the ballot box. Soon, we won't even need names on ballots. We'll simply put pictures of elephants and donkeys on the screen and select our government like we order our value meals.

"Thank you for voting, America. Would you like fries with that?"

   

What snow in the city sounds like to me

So, when I have a snow day crazy things can happen. Garageband things. Looking out at all those fluffy flakes floating down inspired me to pull out the keyboard Sarah gave me for Christmas and scratch out a few notes...

For all of us watching snow flutter past our porch lights tonight, here's what snow sounds like in the city...

The Future of Reading: How magazines can be better than ever

Apple's iPad has been unveiled, and it's potential as a web browser and electronic book reader has people like Josh Quitter thinking about the future of reading in an outstanding, forward-thinking piece focused on how the Internet could impact traditional print magazines.

Personally, I love magazines. I think they have the best chance of any current print format to survive the switch to digital because mags already integrate multiple media.

The visual component is an integral part of the experience. If properly harnessed, the multi-media capacity of the web allows for a richer reader experience than print alone. With the web, features like supporting video, interview audio, and flash animated maps and charts can be used along with the typical photos and graphics.

To survive, magazine outfits need to take three steps:

1. Offer full digital versions for much lower subscription costs than on newsstands.

2. Use the money they save from print production to flood the virtual pages with interactive multi-media content. Maps to click, drag, and scale. Photo slideshows. Audio and video from the interviews. Interactive charts. Links for further reading from past issues.

3. Boost interactivity by providing comment and response mechanisms for digital edition consumers. Schedule chats with the author. Allow a reader to annotate a portion of the article, make comments and publish them to the page. Other viewers could opt to see these annotations - like a collaborative pdf document.

Perhaps the changing tastes of readers is a by-product of a more formally educated population than we had 30 years ago. In college, you can't get by with writing a paper and citing only one source. In college, you learn that most people's writing is influenced by their personal views and not fully objective. As you are exposed to a variety of ideas, you find that often every perspective on a topic has some foundation in fact and can contribute to the discussion.

Perhaps that's why the next generation of readers wants conversation as much as they want information. They want their news and information from multiple sources and from a variety of perspectives. They don't merely want to be told, they want to be shown.

This is a lesson that every traditional medium can learn from as we transition to an increasingly digital age.

  

A book about a book about me?

If I were to write a book someday -- I mean a work of fiction -- I know what I would write. It would be a book about me writing a book about me.

A first person account of me constructing a third person account about myself for national consumption.

The me I would write about writing about wouldn't be a Me that friends would recognize. Neither "Me" (the one writing and the one writing about the process of writing) would be me exactly. They would be the Me's I would be if I let me be myself without being concerned with convention or with being comprehended.

Me (both of them) would be the character I wish I could be or that I'm relieved I'm not -- depending on my mood.

The first person third person autobiography would most likely poke fun at how most people construct what they think is reality based on their desire to be accepted by others based on their perception of what other accept.

And it would be a chance for me (this Me) to write like I think and not translate my thoughts into conventionally composed, single themed streams so others can follow. I could write in rivers, not streams.

"The Convention" would be a good title. That's where Me would get inspired to leave and write about himself. He would write a journal about writing a book about himself while dabbling in writing the book. The journal would be first person and the book would be third person.

And that's how I would write about me writing about Me.