If you’re new to the world of weblogs, and looking to start a blog yourself, Hugh Hewitt’s Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World is not a starter tome. Rather, it is a work that examines the impact blogs have had on American culture, notably in the realms of politics and the mainstream media.
On his radio show, Hugh has repeatedly gone to the blogosphere as a source of news and correction of news from the mainstream media. He cites four major events from the past two years as showing the power of weblogs: the removal of Trent Lott as Senate Majority Leader, the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times, the campaign against John Kerry spearheaded by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the 60 Minutes Bush National Guard forged documents scandal.
Hugh is a huge champion of weblogs, and his constant encouragement of people to start their own blog led Joe Carter to begin a running list of blogs inspired by Hugh. Hugh offers advice to pastors, entrepreneurs, and a wide variety of occupations on starting their own blogs. His conclusion is that you never know where it may take you.
I was so inspired by Blog that I passed it on to my pastor; I would love to see Tim blog on a regular basis.
Tag: read
Hank Hanegraaff, of the “Bible Answer Man” radio show, and author Sigmund Brouwer have teamed up to write The Last Disciple, a novel about first-century Christians, and the people they come in to contact with, undergoing the Great Tribulation under the reign of Nero.
Hanegraaff and Brouwer operate from a different view of biblical translation and interpretation than Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins do in the Left Behind series. As they state in the Afterword, they seek not to divide the Church over this issue, but rather encourage debate and study of the book of Revelation. Simply put, Hanegraaff and Brouwer believe that many of the prophecies the apostle John was witness to, and transcribed in to what we know as Revelation, have already been fulfilled, as they were written to the early Christian church. You can read more on their take at the book’s Web site.
The Last Disciple features several characters, including the wicked Nero, but follows mostly the path of Gallus Sergius Vitas, one of Nero’s inner circle. Vitas, a former military commander and from a Roman founding family, has grown tired of Nero’s persecution of Christians. He doesn’t care for the Christians because they are followers of Christ who refuse to bow to Nero, but rather he is tired of bloodshed in general, having seen too much of it when he was fighting in Britannia, and lost his wife and son, natives of the isle. In the course of his trying to subtly subvert Nero, Vitas discovers an old friend has accepted Christ, and Vitas falls in love with a former slave, also a Christian.
In the mean time, Vitas’s brother Damien, in an attempt to recapture the honor he has cost the family name, becomes a fearsome slave hunter. Damien is hired by another of Nero’s inner circle, this time to find the writer of Revelation, the letter Nero fears and hates. Damien is hired to hunt down John, the last disciple of Christ.
Hanegraaff and Brouwer craft a good read, taking you through the workings and machinations of Nero’s inner circle, the duplicitous politics, the last moments of a Christian on the arena floor, and the feelings of a man who walked and talked with the Creator and Savior of the universe.
A dual reading selection today, mostly because both are sitting next to me, waiting to ship up New England way to my friend Rich, and both deal with the same topic. Mac OS X Hacks, by Rael Dornfest and Kevin Hemenway, was one of the early–if not the first–books in O’Reilly’s Hacks series. The authors, along with numerous contributors, take the reader through many different aspects of the Mac OS X operating system. The book was published in 2003, and covered OS X up through the Jaguar edition.
The second title, Mac OS X Panther Hacks, is the follow-up to the aforementioned book, and will soon be supplanted, I’m sure, by Mac OS X Tiger Hacks. Credit must be given to Rael and co-author James Duncan Davidson for not regurgitating hacks from the first book, but rather, again with the help of contributors, introducing one hundred new ways to make using OS X easier, more efficient, and more fun. Both tomes are highly recommended for those who want to get under the hood of Apple’s great operating system.
Brad Thor delivers another Scot Harvath adventure in State of the Union, as the former Navy SEAL and ex-Secret Service agent is pitted against a Cold War enemy bent on the domination of the United States.
Thor sets a good pace, and lets the reader inside Harvath’s head. I found at times that Thor was trying too hard to be Clancy-esque in his descriptions of weapons systems and other equipment, but otherwise, this is a decent thriller.
I started a static list of books I had read on my old blog. As the list grew, I thought about starting a separate blog just for the books, even going so far as to setting the foundations within Movable Type. Finally, I’ve decided to simply incorporate these book entries in to this blog, with a few new categories to help along the way. These books will be presented both as I come across them in my memory, and as I read them from this point forward.
This is the first of Greg Rucka’s Atticus Kodiak novels I’ve read, even though it’s the fifth in the series, but Critical Space had me hooked and reeled in.
Saturday night, maybe a dozen pages were read. Sunday, however, Sunday was a different story. I zoomed through over 450 pages; the story is just that good. Finished it off this morning, and went to my local Barnes & Noble to pick up the first in the series, Keeper. Started reading that during lunch, and can’t wait to get home tonight after baby CPR class. (Though I promise, sweetheart, that I won’t be up as late as last night!)
Definitely a Retrophisch Recommends Read™!