Saturday, June 6, 2009

The Jim West Carnival

Since Jim was snubbed by the most recent Biblical Studies Carnival (even though he's the #1 Biblioblog by some estimations), I thought I'd rectify that with my own Carnival devoted entirely to highlighting the delightfully eclectic mix of content that comes from the blog of Dr Jim West.

Jim's posts seem to fall predictably into a few general categories, and I've used those to organize the carnival.

1.  Things Jim Doesn't Like - oddly for a blogger, they often have to do with technological change - Wikipedia and Twitter, for example.
Osteenism and Warren-ianity (i.e., the Megachurch movement)
Harvard: A Step Behind the Obvious (re:, Twitter)
Twits: 1000 Words +26 (Twitter, again)
Twitter Truth [I wonder if he's read this week's Time yet. Twitter traffic has grown 1300% over a year ago -- How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live]
Maybe There is Something Good About Wiki After All
2.  Total Depravity - news showing how capable of evil humanity really is.
Craigslist: Is it Really Good for Anything At All? (while not tagged Total Depravity - the story qualifies. Read it.)
Total Depravity: The Meth Making Mom and Dad
The Most Horrific Case of Total Depravity
3.  Tracking Crazy Stuff People are Saying about the Bible or Christianity.
Marvin Vining on 'Jesus as the Wicked Priest' (admittedly Jim might take him seriously, but I needed something for this category.)
Archaeological Mis-Speaking
Juicy Dilettantism
4.  Teasing Fellow Bloggers - especially Chris Tilling and James Crossley.
Where in the World are Crossley and Tilling Now?
Where in the World is James Crossley Now?
Where in the World is Chris Tilling Now?
5.  The Pointing Device - drawing attention to substantive research, books, journals, articles or even blog posts on Biblical topics.
Aramaic Resurgence
Thomas Thompson: The Long Awaited Festschrift (admittedly may not qualify as "substantive research" in everyone's eyes but I haven't read it.)
Tregelles Greek New Testament Online
Cargill, Qumran, And Bible & Interpretation
6.  Talking About The News
Chomsky Chews Obama's Cairo Speech
San Diego Comes to Its Senses
Israel's About to Outlaw Free Speech
7.  Too Many Random Observations
You Reap What You Sow
And Speaking of a Failure to Observe
And an 'Observation' I Don't . . .
PETA: Making Anything It Can of Anything It Can
And this is mostly stuff from just the last week or so with a few going back nearly a month just to give a good representation of the category. According to Google Reader, he averages 52.7 posts per week, so that's a lot of ground to cover. Jim has a few other favorite topics like gun control, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Biblical Archaeology Review. The only downside is that he never tells us what he really thinks. He's just too tactful and restrained.

12 comments:

  1. Just to be clear, I didn't intentionally snub Jim.

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  2. I know ... it's all in good fun.

    It's just funnier because on May 31, Jim linked to your carnival reminder and said, "Awesome! I wonder if he will also be able to do what McGrath did in his Carnival last month- utterly ignore anything and everything I posted!"

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  3. well i'm not sure what to say... thanks comes to mind. and you put a smile on my curmudgeony face. so well done!

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  4. As if Jim West needed the advertising!!

    Still . . . funny stuff. Bravo!

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  5. True, he doesn't need the advertising, but the idea popped into my head yesterday and struck me as too much fun to ignore.

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  6. "Things Jim Doesn't Like"

    You forgot to mention cats.

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  7. Classic, Doug. I'm surprised it hasn't been done sooner.

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  8. yes, he's right, you really should have mentioned cats... but as i haven't said anything about cats in the last week you're forgiven.

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  9. Of course Jim hasn't been cited in the last two carnivals. He never writes anything original, he just whines and complains.

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  10. Anonymous,

    Too true. He's more of a conduit of information than a producer of original content.

    I think it would be impossible to average 50+ substantive original posts per week.

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  11. doug you disappoint me. if someone posts such things anonymously to give them a forum is to be partner with their cowardice.

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  12. It was actually me -- I posted anonymously because I was afraid to just outright tell you what a whiner you are. (note: sarcasm)

    seriously, while I do moderate comments heavily, I'll let the occasional anonymous one through if it seems to be relevant. I generally agree with you about anonymous commenters, though.

    Sorry for letting you down. I'm so ashamed of myself. (note sarcasm again)

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