Category: Life

This is the almost Daylight Savings Time edition. Don’t forget to spring your clocks forward Saturday night before bed!

• At Northeastern University in Boston, a small minority of students protested adding a Chick-fil-A to campus and the student senate nixed the deal. Just another in a long line of “tolerance” activists being completely intolerant of biblical Christian values.
• Florida State grad Sara Blakely is the youngest woman on the Forbes billionaires list. You go, girl.
• Carolyn Weber writes about seeing Shakespeare as a sort of Psalmist. I posited that opinion in a college class years ago and was told the professor wasn’t familiar enough with psalms to know if I was right. Hm.
• I’ve been spending a good amount of time thinking about “getting the right people on the bus” lately (including figuring out whether I’d like to take opportunities to get on others’ buses or drive my own). Alison Green, Ask A Manager herself, writes about five interview practices to hire superstars.
• International Women’s Day was yesterday (I know; ptooie). On the Girls Gone Wise blog, Mary Kassian wrote a post calling all men and talking about how we have to stop feminizing the world. Amen, and worth a read.

Okay, are you ready? There’s little fluff and much substance in this week’s batch of links. I’d love to have some great conversation, in the comments or in person, about these topics…

• Life has a photo gallery called “Taboo then, typical now” that will make you miss the good ol’ days (or not, in some cases).

 

• Feminists, who I’d almost forgotten are still an organized group, are now holding events called Slutwalk, where women march barely clothed in order to reclaim the word ‘slut’. Makes me wish they weren’t still an organized group.

 

• USA Today pokes at media coverage lately, asking when college became just a way to land a fat job. Whatever happened to learning? (I actually think the higher education system happened to learning, but that’s another story.)

 

• Along those lines, on Front Porch Republic Jason Peters writes about a Trojan Horse in “Higher” Education.

 

• Seth Godin writes about the game theory of discovery and the birth of free-gap. He argues that using free products and services as a discovery tool will soon be less viable, and speculates on what model could come next.

 

• A recent McKinsey Quarterly survey has found that 30% of employers will stop offering health care coverage to their employees when the full provisions of the “health care reform bill” (aka Obamacare) kick in. That is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg; it’s hard to measure how many employers, especially small businesses, are holding off hiring because they don’t know what it will cost them to do so.

 

• Finally, Tony Woodlief has a great article in Image about how bad theology leads to bad Christian art. If you’re interested in discussing Christianity and the arts on an ongoing basis, head over to Terry Yount’s new blog Kulture Kafe and jump in.

Am I the only one who wonders how it can be June already?!

My iPhone’s browser crashed yesterday and lost some of the links I was saving for today. That’ll teach me not to bookmark ’em 😛

• On the Girls Gone Wise blog Mary Kassian discusses why female beauty matters for Christians.
• We were made to labor. On the Ligonier blog Richard Phillips writes about work, identity, and the effect of sin.
• Mark Bittman, the New York Times food writer, has an essay on how cooking gave him purpose. It’s how he cares for his family, and those of you who can’t cook will enjoy seeing his four stages of learning to cook.
• Do you have a Kindle yet? WHY NOT? The Kindle edition of John Piper’s latest book, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, is on sale for $2.99. {Amazon Affiliate link}
• Speaking of, here’s how to get free Christian Kindle books.
• Seth Godin gives helpful tips on how to be interviewed by the press.
• Challies’ Reading Classics Together has restarted, reading Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism this month. {Amazon Affiliate link} Join in!
• I’ve been wanting to re-read The Lord of the Rings for a couple years. It’s not going to be in 2011 since narratives of that magnitude don’t fit well into reading 100 books this year, but in 2012 I’m definitely going to! On Front Porch Republic Mark T. Mitchell discusses the beauty of Tolkien’s quest.
• Happy I’ve been giving my friends all the right advice over the years, here’s a great point-by-point for job hunters on how to write a resume that gets the interview.

• “It was too much, really. It’s one thing to titillate progressive theatergoers with scenes of physical abuse and psychological torture and lines like “You’re f—ing f—ed.” But David Mamet had at last gone too far. He’d turned into a f—ing Republican.” Read this fantastic piece on converting David Mamet in the Weekly Standard.
• I’ve often had to explain why I love LOST so much, and this post does a great job of getting at some of the reasons: The Six Year Journey to WTF?!
  
• Did you know the USDA has finally revised their cooking temperature recommendations? You now officially only have to cook whole meat to 145 degrees. Finally I can quit explaining to my non-cooking friends why yes, it really is okay to eat pink pork. 🙂
• There’s a lot of psychology in sales and marketing, and you need to stay alert, know how to bargain, when, and the real value of your finds. Here’s a great post on when a discount isn’t really a discount.
• Fabs writes a great post on when saying less is saying more with advice from the great C. S. Lewis himself, who was a succinct, excellent and very prolific writer.
• The Gospel Coalition blog had a great post on why nostalgia is no solution; in the recent batch of TV shows depicting the 50s and 60s, we must remember that while feminism has done damage, objectification of women wasn’t biblical either.
• If you’re a new freelancer, Jennette Fulda has pulled together some information and resources from her research as she’s tried to find post-COBRA coverage with a chronic health condition. It’s a good place to kick off your own search and save a little bit of time!

Tim Challies writes about date nights and devotions:

But what if we are missing the point? What if the point of devotions is less about learning about God and more about spending time with God? What if it’s less about Bible study and more about building relational intimacy? What would change about our devotions if instead of trying to learn about God, we focused instead on spending time with God, time spent hearing from him through his Word and speaking to him through prayer?

~ ~ ~

Amazon is now selling more Kindle books than print books… hardcover and paperback combined!

For all you photography lovers, here’s the history of Nikon’s first digital camera (in 1988!).

“Even Thor has grown richer through acquaintance with Jesus,” writes Lars Walker in his review of the film.

You’ve already heard the world is ending tomorrow, but have you heard Vladimir Putin is St. Paul? This has been an episode of Really?! With Seth And Amy. 🙂

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides comes out today!