Here’s a link to Rachel’s site where she has a posting with a link through to an article about her experiences on building online communties via blogging NZ Idol. See: » Another stint in the media cre8d design – journal.

Russell Brown wrote the article in the Listener and I read and listen to his stuff online (Public Address | Hard News), in print (Wide Area News | New Zealand Listener) and on the radio (Mediawatch) most weeks. Don’t always agree with him but there’s often some good stuff there to get you thinking.

Recent article on the relationship between faith and politics “across the ditch” in Australia : TIME Pacific Magazine: Christian Soldiers — Nov. 29, 2004.

Gale force winds, hail and rain. Then five minutes later clear blue skies before a repeat of the rain. Must be Auckland 4-5 days before summer officially starts. Hoping all the roof tiles stay on tonight.

Just heard a guy from this being interviewed on the radio. Sounds like an excellent way to get some relevant community programming – and they do the hard work of actually making it. See Open Door.

The Open Door project gives access to TV3 Network television to selected individuals and groups of New Zealanders.

If you’re involved in an issue, a cause or an activity that you want people to know about, you can apply to make your own television documentary.

Here’s a clip – Activism – they made on what it means to be an activist in NZ.

Just working through Elaine Graham’s paper Bioethics after Posthumanism: Natural Law, Communicative Action and the Problem of Self-Design for a second time. Some good, thought provoking material there. For example,

Socio-economic inequalities may thus represent as profound a threat to human dignity as biotechnologies.

I think this gets forgotten in all the heated discussions. That some who are vehemently anti-biotechnology, especially in focusing on defending the sanctity of the (abstract) individual, don’t see that technological practices they do approve of may be discriminating against whole communities already in existence. That those people’s human dignity and value as persons is being denied.

I’m also pondering her question,

But does our concept of human nature have to be fixed and immutable in order to have moral substance?

Depending on your view of the image and likeness of God in human beings different answers might be given.

Wired News: U.N. Deadlocks on Cloning Ban

Tied up with this is the ongoing debate about is a “human life” different from a “human being”.

Italy’s proposal asks member states to “prohibit any attempts at the creation of human life through cloning processes and any research intended to achieve that aim.”

Human life tends to be a broader definition including early embryoic life, rather than human being which is often seen as a narrower definition.

Went for a walk a day or so ago around Paremuka Lakeside Reserve which is about 5-10 minutes walk from home. My back’s been sore so I’ve been taking breaks from essay marking and rewriting my current article and walking around the neighbourhood. Today my youngest and I walked down to the public library for preschool storytime which was a good workout as it’s uphill all the way back pushing the pushchair.

Anyway at one end of Paremuka reserve is this sculpture – Eel Man. Spent a bit of time just by the water looking at it and thinking about the artist’s intention with it. The artist, Warren Viscoe, writes,

The references are restorative, the act of restocking and replenishing that which is fragile and timeless. The eel could be described as a conduit between people and the natural world. The physical and metaphorical journey it signals traces a passage inward and outward, to the hinterland and to the remote reaches of the ocean.

Certainly I found it restorative and will be walking that way regularly. Will try and get a better photo.

It’s getting pretty crowded in here.

Barbour, Ian G. Ethics in an Age of Technology: The Gifford Lectures 1989-1991. Vol. 2. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.



Bostrom, Nick. The Transhumanist FAQ : A General Introduction. Version 2.1. World Transhumanist Association, October 2003. Accessed 1 November 2004. Available from http://transhumanism.org/resources/FAQv21.pdf.



Forrester, Duncan B. "The Scope of Public Theology." Studies in Christian Ethics 17, no. 2 (2004): 5-19.



________. "Social Justice and Welfare." In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, ed. Robin Gill, 195-208. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Reprint, 2002.



Graham, Elaine. "Bioethics after Posthumanism : Natural Law, Communicative Action and the Problem of Self-Design." Ecotheology 9, no. 2 (2004): 178-198.



Goethals, Gregor T. The Electronic Golden Calf : Image, Religion, and the Making of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1990.



Peters, Ted. "Human Cloning : Religious Responses." In Human Cloning : Religious Responses, ed. Ronald Cole-Turner, 12-24. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.



White, Susan J. Christian Worship and Technological Change. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994.

S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System.

For simple, clean presentations that you might want to put both on the web and a kiosk it looks like a good starting point. (None of the Powerpoint for Web bloat).

Via Tim@SansBlogue

How odd. Somehow I never thought I’d come across Rick Warren while reading a science and religion editorial. See: Science & Theology News – Editorial: The universe, and our lives, on purpose. So far the most surprising thing today.