The Susan Boyle, etc. phenomenon

Yoni has put embedded all three videos in one blog post http://bmimedical.blogspot.com/2009/04/if-these-clips-dont-give-you-goose.html - Susan Boyle, Paul Potts and Andrew.

Ozzie Osbourne says we need entertainers to get us through the tough times like the blitz and SARS, etc. At the moment, we have people losing their houses, their jobs, their retirement savings. Since the never-trust-anyone-under-thirty days in the '60s, the message is that if you haven't made your mark by 30, it's just not going to happen. So where does it leave all the people who have found themselves out in the cold? Everyone knows people who have lost a job at 50 and stopped dead in their tracks. It takes courage to go for a job interview. Interview decisions can be made at first glance and there's only a few precious minutes to change someone's first impression. So how do you convince people to get back into the game? Why should they spend the money on the clothes, the hair, transportation if the experience is going to be depressingly hopeless? It certainly isn't a time when we can afford having talented people pulling back and self-eliminating themselves from the marketplace. So what's to be done?

You send in the wounded warriors. What's your excuse? Surely you have as much self confidence as Andrew? You're probably at least as buff as Paul. And you can probably find as much fight inside yourself as Susan has if you just look deeply enough. This is a rally call of the troops. This is essential for the recovery of the suffering and the recovery of the economy.

You probably don't know this but clergy are the one group of professionals that are not chosen based on grades. If theology schools are doing what theology schools are supposed to do, they are looking for healed scars. To be a priest, one is supposed to have experienced woundedness. Who seeks out a priest? Usually not superstars at the top of their game and loving every minute of it. People seek out a priest when they're hurting, when their world is about to collapse. They want someone who understands, who has felt their pain - they want the wounded healer.

In our society, most young people have no experience with the church. Their religion is their music. Who is going to reach them - help through this tough time? Probably not the super-successful, super-beautiful, living-the-good life guys and dolls. They don't have much to offer people feeling like losers. So we're rolling out a new group of entertainers. Yesterday they were a joke but look at them today - they're wowing people. The rules seem to be a changing. Give it another shot. If you have talent, step out of the darkness and put yourself forward.

Twitter & Facebook

I took a break from blogging to work on my twitter and facebook accounts. It takes a bit of concentrated effort to what should be happening where. Facebook is definitely my personal learning network. It includes people in my friend/relative circle as well as classmates from CCK08 and others I wanted to know in more depth. Twitter is a whole different story. At first I was adding facebook friends but that was unnecessary as they post to both places. On twitter I've added media sources of information, people from #followfriday and people on the internet who interest me. It's a much more distance relationship than facebook because of the much fewer words for interaction. The twitters I follow though are more connected than just being twitters - I read their blogs or watch their shows or find their online articles interesting. There has to be some connection - I'm not collecting or competing for numbers.