Seven whole days

Oh, the outrage! As you will know, dear reader, your intrepid blogger has been providing authoritative coverage of the church and the swine flu fear pandemic. We’ve been at it, non-stop, since we heard about the first instance of over reaction. Hey, if it worked for Fox News, why not us?

Now, it seems, the Ship of Fools has decided to get in on the action. And for their leading joke, they’ve cribbed a bit of humor from 7WD. That’s right, number 10 on my list of 10 Ways to Make Church Safe During a Fear Pandemic is “Presider wears a haz-mat suit.” And what is their first joke? Pictured alongside a haz-mat suit, they write, “new clergy vestments are now available in case of a further outbreak of the deadly virus.”

I know all the Fools over there know about 7WD, since there’s a link to 7WD on their forum. So obviously they took my idea, since there is no possible way two people could have thought of this independently. The question is, what shall I do in response to this clear provocation?

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They could be a lot worse. At least we’re agreed that all Anglican prayer books will use fonts with serifs (with the notable exception of Common Worship). Do we need a panel of reference to ban sans serif fonts? If we can’t agree on same-sex blessings and parallel jurisdictions, can we at least settle on Garamond?

Or, to put it another way, if we are about to kill each other off, who will be our Comic Sans?

Photography is a bit of a hobby for me, as you’ll see if you visit me on flickr. I recomend you start with the sets or collections pages. Anyway, I’ve just finished uploading some photos from a recent trip to Florence, Venice, and Rome. Here are three photos to encourage you to look further. You see Florence, Venice, and Rome.

You are welcome to use any of my flickr photos, with attribution, for noncommercial purposes, per the terms of the Creative Commons license. I welcome feedback, especially critical feedback (and corrections to caption info).

I was first made aware of the significance of this day by @seanmcconnell on Twitter. I knew that before the day was done, some blog would oblige with an illustration, and Gizmodo did not disappoint.

There’s recent news that the United Methodist Church is about to unleash a $20 million ad campaign.

The messaging, targeting 18- to 34-year-olds, highlights the many opportunities for involvement within United Methodist churches – from community hunger programs to basketball leagues. Meanwhile, the denomination is engaging in dialogue within its churches about enhancing those opportunities.

“We aim to reach young adults who are not familiar with church, who are concerned about the world in which we live, who want to make their lives more meaningful, and who have a deep yearning to connect with God and with a community of support,” said the Rev. Larry Hollon, chief executive of United Methodist Communications. “We also hope to reach people inside the church who will reassess what it means to be people of faith.”

Campaigns like this are sorely needed. More to the point, the church is sorely needed by a whole generation.

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Apropos of nothing, but I thought this was great.

The foot bone connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the knee bone, the knee bone connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone connected to the hip bone, the hip bone connected to the back bone, the back bone connected to the shoulder bone, the shoulder bone connected to the neck bone, the neck bone connected to the head bone, now hear the word of the lord.

A rattle of the bone at MetaFilter.

I was looking for a great recording of Psalm 23 sung to Anglican Chant, but I couldn’t seem to find that. My safety option — and a fine one it is — is Howard Goodall’s arrangement, better known as the theme for the Vicar of Dibley. Enjoy.

I also enjoy Bobby McFerrin’s take on Psalm 23.

Swine flu is actually nice looking. Then again maybe regular flu is nice looking too.

From the CDC, but I found this on BoingBoing, where they add an important note: “FACT: If you tilt the computer screen at just the right angle and slightly cross your eyes, you will see a pig riding a sailboat.”

Moral of the story. You can’t judge a book by its cover, at least unless you tilt it first to look for hidden images.

It seems that 7WD is quickly becoming the authoritative source for information on swine flu as it relates to churches. Keeping up our breathless coverage, I bring you this chart. Please continue to read the news, which will build up fear. That way, you’ll crave more news and visit 7WD. See how it works?

From GraphJam.

I feel it best not to comment on this, but I enjoyed it greatly.

Wave of the cross to Rich Johnson.

Here they are, all the way back to back to 1970. They are all here. Everything from the dancing baby to Susan Boyle, from “I can has cheezburger” to the birth of the Internet itself. Even “the Internets” is here. Go ahead, have a trip down meme-ory lane.

From dipity.

I love the Big Picture blog run by boston.com. It’s well worth following in your RSS reader. Anyway, enjoy this set of photos of “human landscapes” taken from aircraft.

The photos range from beautiful to depressing, from inspiring to strange.