mbjones

The following links are meant to stand with the previous bit I wrote. My opinion hasn’t really changed all that much: #Kony2012 is to be applauded if it succeeds and getting people deeper into the issues of the region. If it stands on it’s own though, without deeper engagement, I don’t think it rightfully can be applauded. My concern is that it stands more often than not on its own. These links will helpfully flesh out the issues and concerns and drive us into a deeper understanding of how we can rightly be involved.

• We’ll start with this: Ben Keesey, one of IC’s founders responds via video to some of the criticism. Personally, I don’t think it responds to the right pieces of the criticism, but here it is for your perusal.

• Slate wrote a good article on “Crowd-Sourced Intervention”. It’s good food for thought.

• One item that I’ve seen come up several times is the lack of an LRA presence in northern Uganda BUT the presence of an odd disease (nodding disease) only affecting children. Many Ugandan voices in particular would like to see more awareness about this.

• Rachel Held Evans wrote about the situation for Relevant Magazine. It’s worth a perusal at the very least.

• This is a video from an Ugandan journalist. Her voice is worth hearing. She pointed as well towards this coverage by Al Jazeera detailing the reaction of several thousand Ugandans watching Kony2012 for the first time.

• And finally, in a more amusing twist, apparently quite a few folks have been confusing Joseph Kony with Carl Weathers.

Invisible Children have a new video out (Kony2012) and it’s made a splash in a big way. The vast majority of the publicity you’ve likely seen is positive but there have been a few less than excited voices out there. I have a natural aversion to anything that goes viral in such a big way so it took me some time to check it out, and upon doing so found myself with mixed emotions.

• I’m honestly glad that they are trying to raise awareness about an important issue: a vast history of injustice in the central/eastern African region perpetuated by the LRA and Joseph Kony.
• There has been a lot of discussion about IC’s financials. It’s not all that bothersome to me that so much of their cash goes into video advocacy. I expected that. I think IC did a good job of speaking to this issue specifically here
• I’m honestly quite uncomfortable with several aspects of it.
• I’m not keen on how much the issue has been oversimplified. IF the video thrusts folks into learning more and digging deeper, GREAT. But I’m not sure it’s doing that. And you still have to deal with the fact that it glosses over information that’s quite important (and at times gives some questionable info as well)
• I’m not keen on heavy US involvement or placing an un-critical eye on Ugandan army involvement either. Particularly in regards to the latter, they have their own war crimes to answer for in this region. In regards to the former, it wasn’t exactly an altruistic involvement: we got the Ugandans to fight in Somalia for us.
• I’m not keen on the advocating of direct violence as a solution. Especially when nonviolent approaches are currently working (and have been for some time). I won’t go so far as to say that its beyond a state’s power to exercise violence if she deems it necessary, but it should never be done lightly. Direct concerns here: will cutting off the head kill the LRA? Probably not, and we are left with a new, potentially more troublesome problem. Also, do we not think that Kony will surround himself with a large number of children? Ignoring that they are brainwashed and holding guns, and assuming the innocence of childhood, the collateral damage potential is massive.
• Flowing from the above, Obama’s “kill or capture” order makes me uncomfortable. I’d much rather see, and celebrate, justice rather than death.

Anyways, I don’t want to spend much more time writing on it. It has worth in raising awareness but I would encourage you not to stop with it, or what IC is trying to do. Dig deeper into the issue. Listen to Ugandan voices. There is significant work going on in the region, actively seeking justice and peace. Get involved there. Listen to the voices of successful nonviolent resistance and heed their cries.

• A fun kickstarter. Ze Frank is wanting to bring back the show. Back when it was originally on, I found it quite amusing. It’s basically crowd-sourced show on news, etc.

• Pinterest for men. I think Gentlemint looks better.

• It’s politics season again. Or getting there, at least. Remember don’t automatically believe anything you here a politician say. Take this example of Santorum on Higher Education. As the article says, he’s either outright lieing or incredibly misguided. I’ll let you pick which. Don’t assume any candidate on either side is more truthful though; take all that is said as a grain of salt - test it all.

• Sufjan Stevens is teaming up with Son Lux and Serengeti. Even though I don’t know anything about Serengeti, this excites me.

• Velveting: The art of stirfrying a moister meat. Worth a try sometime, I suppose?

• I learn a lot from reading Vinoth Ramachandra. His blog is well worth the perusal. Here is his latest post.

• Interested in creating a better internet experience, and don’t mind getting your hands “dirty” (coding!) then check out this hosts file that auto blocks tons of adware, spyware and otherwise malicious stuff.

• Many years ago Calvin & Hobbes explained the Occupy Wall Street movement to us. Surprisingly prescient? Perhaps…

• Speaking of OWS, Andrew Sullivan links to a talk on what inequality does to a society.

• There are some odd tumblr’s out there, but few are as odd and funny, as this one: Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses.

• J Lee Grady, an editor of Charisma Magazine writes on the importance of a charismatic reformation. This is an important read, and should be deeply considered. Highlights:

1. Let’s reform our theology. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God and He is holy. He is not an “it.” He is not a blob, a force, or an innate power. We must stop manipulating Him, commanding Him and throwing Him around.

2. Let’s return to the Bible. The Word of God is the foundation for the Christian experience. Any dramatic experience, no matter how spiritual it seems, must be tested by the Word and the Holy Spirit’s discernment.

7. No more Lone Rangers. Those who claim to be ministers of God—whether they are traveling evangelists, local pastors or heads of ministries—must be accountable to other leaders.

9. Stop faking the anointing. God is God, and He does not need our “help” to manifest Himself. That means we don’t sprinkle glitter on ourselves to suggest God’s glory is with us, hide fake jewels on the floor to prove we are anointed or pull chicken feathers out of our sleeves to pretend angels are in the room.

15. Let’s make the main thing the main thing. The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s anointing is to empower us to reach others. We are at a crossroads today: Either we continue off-course, entertained by our charismatic sideshows, or we throw ourselves into evangelism, church planting, missions, discipleship, and compassionate ministry that helps the poor and fights injustice. Churches that embrace this New Reformation will focus on God’s priorities.

The whole thing is worth a read, especially as its written by an insider. Many within protestant circles have been either (a) severely hurt by the things Grady speaks to or (b) severely disillusioned by the show; in these cases, rather than walking firmly in the power of God it’s something denied or rationalized away.

• Matt Wiebe on The God Shaped Hole and consumerist culture. Also worth some thought…

I can’t spend a ton of time on every app review. It’d just frustrate me. So, I’m going to start doing some “shorts”: a series of 3 quick (no more than a few paragraphs) app reviews. Today I’ll do some “reading” apps.

Kindle

I’m just doing a short review of the Kindle app because most everyone knows about and has likely used it. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a book reader for reading primarily books bought through the Amazon kindle store (but it can read other formats too, like pdfs). It works brilliantly. You can highlight passage, bookmark pages, share bits and pieces from what you are reading, all within the app itself. Further, for books you buy on the kindle store, it keeps everything synced between devices, and you can even view your highlights and such online. It’s my preferred e-reader on the iPad. 5 of 5 stars.

Logos Bible

The Logos Bible app is a an app built for Bible study. And it’s quite a nice app. It beautifully presents the text, and has a plethora of study options (I particularly like the passage guides). It’s big issue, though, is that it is designed to be paired with the desktop app. If you have it (version 4 in either the Mac or Windows variety), this will likely be your iOS bible app of choice. If you DON’T, well, it probably won’t be. The cost barrier will make it difficult to justify when there are free apps that do similar things. Because of this, it loses “stars” in my rating, and it’s not an app I use day to day; I don’t have the desktop version and don’t ever see myself having the money to splurge on it. 3 of 5 stars (likely more if you have the desktop version)

YouVersion Bible

I mentioned free, and fully featured, Bible software in the Logos review. The YouVersion Bible app is the one that most people will want to check out. It beautifully presents the Bible, has built in reading plans and the ability to take notes linked to references, bookmark verses as well as share them through a variety of means. Most of the translations can be downloaded for offline viewing as well. If you haven’t checked it out, you should. It’s definitely worth a look (and will plug you into a large community of folks interested in studying the Bible). 4 of 5 stars

introduction

So. My past few app reviews have been for calendaring solutions. The first couple were all inclusive, containing both event management and project management (if in a clunky way) and the third had some basic task management capabilities built in as well (although was not nearly as robust a solution). It was that third, Calvetica, that I landed on as my calendaring app of choice. It was easy to use, easy to input data into, and did just what I needed done, excepting project management. It’s this that I’ll turn to now. And I’ll review the first great program of the category that I have run across. It’s called Voodo (try and let the name not turn you away; perhaps a poor choice, but still a good app, and it might be perfect for your needs).

So what is Voodo? Voodo is a robust task management solution, that allows you to input the tasks that you have, along with their relevant details, and then get to work on them. It does a couple of clever things on top of this, as well, that might interest you.

the likes

As I previously said, this was the first good solution that I came across. Not perfect, mind you, but quite good.

The stand out feature, to me, was its google calendar integration. It’s not something I saw done in other task/project management apps, and was quite unique. It’s not a google tasks integration either. Rather, it creates a new calendar called “Voodo”, and tasks are uploaded as all day events onto it. If the task has a due date, it’s put on that date. If it doesn’t, well, they are made timeless and synced somewhere as well. This implementation is nice for a couple of reasons:

1. It gives you quick access to your tasks from anywhere, regardless of whether you have the app with you. All you need is access to your google calendar (which is easy to get on any phone with data or computer connected to the ‘net).

2. It also provides a backup in case anything happens. Hopefully the importance of this speaks for itself.

When tasks are completed, rather than removing them from the calendar, they are marked with a “+” at the beginning of the task name, creating a historical record on the calendar as well. All in all, the google calendar integration is quite a compelling feature.

It doesn’t all the creation of projects, so to speak, but allows the addition of tags to the task, so you are able to group them in this manner. Tags are a great means of categorization, and provide the ability to drill down into our tasks pretty quickly.

Speaking of the tasks, you can add location and people contexts to each, and add notes, set dates, and prioritize (4 levels). And everything can be sorted by these things (excepting notes).

the dislikes

My biggest dislike is probably the lack of projects. Like I said, tags are quite nice, and helpful, but it’d be nice to be able to group tasks together in a more coherent way. For example, I will often have a project where things need to be done in succession, and it’d be nice to be able to more specifically set this (rather than doing it generically with the due dates and tags).

It also makes google calendar “clunky”. If you have a lot of tasks, it adds a lot of info onto your calendar. This isn’t a dealbreaker by any means, but it does add some unnecessary clutter. I wish there was a way to create the tasks as time specific events, rather than all day events.

The interface also works quite nicely, but isn’t the prettiest to look at. Again, not a dealbreaker by any means, but something keeping it in the good not great category.

conclusion

As I started by saying, Voodo is a great app. If you need a simple, straightforward task management application with pretty sweet google calendar integration, look no further. It’s inexpensive too. My final verdict is 4 out of 5 stars.

• Found this to be a helpful post on eating well in the midst of poverty. There are simple things to do that go miles.

• eBible.com is under new ownership, and launched a new version. It would seem they are looking to compete with YouVersion.

• Neoliberal economic theory, and it’s grip on American Politics is something I’ve found disturbing over the past few years. This is a pretty good article on it (and some of the reasons why I’m not much of a fan).

• In the web-startup-world, Lanbito appears to be an interesting competitor to Wufoo. Like the pricing, but don’t yet like the feature list. Add some things, and I’d consider migrating over.

• If you are on facebook, then you’ve at least heard tell of a the forthcoming changes. Here’s a good round up of what to expect. It doesn’t appear that they are changing pages much yet, just profiles (this is important if you are managing several).

Well this seems like a good enough roundup for now. Hopefully you can find some good reading material there!