blog moving

I've moved my new posts over to this new blog and will resume blogging immediately. Please go to http://bdbertrand.blogspot.com/ for more.

Great Teens

So often we hear about the bad. Here is my cousin who clearly is a story of success. What the article fails to relate though is that faith has been an important part of her life. She is currently volunteering at the Yonge Street Mission.

Last.fm and New Radio

The little chart to the right on my blog that shows tunes I'm playing is actually from last.fm which takes music into the social networking world. If you haven't tried it and you like music, you should. Simply type in one of your favourite artists and you will get streamed to your computer artists that are on the playlists of other last.fm listeners. Type in "Nina Simone" and you will get all kinds of different music from folks who like Nina.

Anyways, CBS has recognized the future of music is away from radio and has bought last.fm . Not sure how I feel about a company owning my music community but perhaps they can change the way that radio functions.

Female Empowerment and Porn

One of the topics in my youth ministry class that I raise has to do with porn. Although no overly deep in, the following article has some interesting notes about how porn interacts with adolescent female empowerment. Especially interesting are some of the links at the bottom of the page, especially for those who work with adolescents.

Facebook is better than Myspace

Friends recently mocked me when I told them why I never had a Myspace page. Essentially, I found all the pages I did see chaotic and difficult to navigate. Facebook on the other hand is standardized. I know how to navigate around it. My friends mocked me as being stodgy and old, perhaps both true, but not because I like Facebook more than Myspace.

Over here is a quote from a panel of Silicon valley youth. The verdict? They like Facebook better. Why? "On both panels, MySpace universally was out of favor (even if the panelists still had a profile up) because it was too "gawdy" or "cluttered."

Rats

I'm not sure that I can intelligently connect these three things but there must be significant:

1. The Atlantic Monthly had an article on the 'stop snitching' movement as it plays out in Baltimore. The code of omerta which normally protects mafia and organized crime is now supposed to protect cheap drug dealers and petty theives. There is something tragic about the loss of community.

2. Parkdale Pictures recently had a little piece on CBC that I caught. He wants to point out the hypocrisy of the media who chastises hip-hop culture (see previous article) for the "stop snitching" but who turn around and then yell "snitch, snitch" at David Radler.

3. Now there is Whosarat.com which outs rats using court documents.

Seems that issues of truth and community swirl around this topic and that new technology complicates both.

Peter Hazelrigg

My Spain buddy and main partner in thinking about wildreness stuff has put up the start of a more extensive website. Nothing too deep or interactive yet but it is a start.