Daily Links 3-5-14

In today's post: why Satan hates your family, who is your lion, reasons to avoid sexual immorality, Reddit saves a bakery, and more.

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Why Satan hates your family. Some good points here about why Satan works so hard to attack families.

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How to write an e-mail that will get a response. Some of these tips will seem a little obvious. However, it amazes me the number of e-mails I get that don't abide by even the simplest of guidelines.

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Who is your lion? Whose lion are you? Or to put it another way: who has had the biggest impact on your Christian walk? And who have you had the biggest impact upon?

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"Dear Soldier -- my dad was a soldier. He's in heaven now."  A heartwarming story about an 8 year old boy who decided to pay it forward with a soldier.

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Hire slow, fire fast. A very unconventional way of thinking about hiring and firing employees. It has a lot of merit.

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10 reasons to avoid sexual immorality. A very sobering list to reflect upon.

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25 motivational Winston Churchill quotes. How we so desperately need a leader like him today.

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Don't doubt the power of social media: how Reddit came to a bakery's rescue. (Hat tip: Food Riot)

Daily Links 2-7-14

Good morning! Here are a few links to start off your weekend: debating creationism, time to stop Facebook lurking, the importance of writing letters by hand, and more.

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Earlier this week, the Creation Museum hosted a debate between co-founder Ken Ham and Bill Nye. In case you missed the debate, here's a great recap from Dr. Albert Mohler on what was discussed.

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It's time to stop Facebook lurking:

For all of the good it’s done in connecting us all, Facebook has redefined the way we think about community in a singular way: It’s turned us into a culture of lurkers.

Where actual community requires that its members compromise and meet certain social requirements (like listening, interacting, being in relationship), Facebook allows users to join a community on their own terms. With its filters, search tools and editing powers, it’s turned community into a product that can be customized by its customers. 

We see, react and share only what we choose to. And, there’s nothing preventing us from standing on the sidelines and just lurking into lives we’re not involved in. 

Real community is predicated on two-way communication: The delivery of information and feedback. Though social media applications like Facebook have plenty of tools that enable back-and-forth discussion, scanning a newsfeed and checking out profiles turns community into a consumer experience: It distills conversations into one-way updates, that are filtered into easy-to-consume streams.

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This week also saw the conclusion of series three of the popular BBC program Sherlock. Here's why we love the show so much. After the final episode concluded, I was left wanting to see more. That's what good television will do.

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Tim Challies on the new book The Gospel at Work:

The Gospel at Work is a new book from Greg Gilbert and Sebastian Traeger and its big idea is this: You work for the king, and this changes everything. No matter what you do, your work has value because you are doing it for the Lord and who you work for is far more important than the details of what you do. This means that there is no such thing as a meaningless job and no such thing as a job that is insignificant. 

Much of the book is structured around two of the ways that we can allow our work to become sinful. Each represents an extreme. For some the temptation is idleness at work while for others the temptation is idolatry of work. Some hope to find their significance and worth in the work they do so that work becomes “the primary object of our passions, our energy, and our love. We end up worshiping our job.” But then others “can slip into being idle in our work. When we fail to see God’s purposes in our work, we don’t really care much about it. We fail to give any attention to it, or we despise it and generally neglect our responsibility to serve as if we are serving the Lord.” And, sadly, both of these extremes are celebrated in our culture. 

The challenge of The Gospel at Work is to avoid those extremes, and the way to do that is to work out the implications of the gospel in what you do.“ If you are a Christian, we want to challenge you to begin connecting the reality of what God has done for you in Christ to your job, thinking carefully about how this applies to and changes the way you think about your work.”

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Brett McKay (from The Art of Manliness) on the importance of writing letters by hand:

In our hyper-connected world, with its text messaging and its Facebooking and its Twittering, the good, old-fashioned handwritten letter has nearly become extinct. Which is a shame because when it comes to sharing one’s true thoughts, sincere sympathies, ardent love, and deepest gratitude, words traveling along the invisible digital superhighway will never suffice. Why?

Because sending a letter is the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door. Ink from your pen touches the stationery, your fingers touch the paper, your saliva seals the envelope. Something tangible from your world travels through machines and hands, and deposits itself in another’s mailbox. The recipient handles the paper that you handled and they see your personality and individuality conveyed in your handwriting. 

So what keeps folks from taking advantage of the marvels of letter writing? Laziness, primarily. But I also think there’s an intimidation factor in play. Thanks to Ken Burns documentaries in which talented voice actors read eloquent 19th century correspondences, a misguided belief has formed that if you’re going to write a letter by hand, it needs to be filled with ponderous gravitas. Both roadblocks can be eliminated with a bit of preparation and education.

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Six ways to salvage an unproductive day. I've had my fair share of those.

Daily Links 1-31-14

In today's edition: Common Core and reading, faithful thinking, Sherlock and male friendship, ditching social media, and more.

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Lost in the debate over Common Core standards is that they inhibit teachers' ability to instill a love for reading in students:

How did you develop a love for reading?

Ask George Saunders, Barry Hannah, or Andrea Barrett. For each of these writers, their love for reading was realized in a K-12 classroom. For Maya Angelou, it’s thanks in part to Miss Kirwin, a “brilliant teacher” at the George Washington High School in San Francisco. For John McPhee, it’s thanks in part to Olive McKee, an English teacher he had for three years. Of course, you don’t have to look to lauded authors. Most readers, writers, and book-lovers can point you to a moment in their educational journeys where a love for reading was inspired in them by a passionate K-12 teacher. 

However, the ability of schools and teachers to foster a love for reading in students is under assault in today’s educational climate. We live in a time of high-stakes accountability, where quantifiable metrics, namely standardized test scores, are used to judge students, teachers, and schools. Now, we are faced with the Common Core, new standards in Math and English Language Arts that are sweeping the nation. Incentivized by billions in federal grant dollars, 45 states are adopting the Common Core, with some states rolling out their implementations over the last two school years and other states waiting until next school year. 

With these new standards come new tests, namely the Smarter Balanced assessment and PARCC, which are expected to take up to 10 hours for students to complete every year, starting in third grade. These tests will dominate students and teachers’ lives and turn many engaging classrooms into test prep zones. This myopic focus on testing places an extraordinary burden on students and teachers — such an extreme focus detracts from students’ educational experiences and greatly impedes schools and teachers’ ability to foster a love for reading in all students.

This should matter not only to students, parents, and teachers, but to publishers, writers, readers, and booksellers across America. If we want reading to flourish as a pastime and a serious pursuit, schools must be able to devote the necessary time and resources toward reading for pleasure.

Hat tip: Book Riot

The problem with putting so much emphasis on standardized tests as a measure of educational progress is that curriculum then is tailored towards teaching to the test rather than actually educating the child.

The other major flaw in such programs is the inherent desire to treat students as a homogeneous group. As we have discussed here before every student is different and so it should not be unreasonable to think that their education should be tailored to the needs and the learning style of the student.

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Seven observations on church discipline from Thom Rainer. These are some good thoughts on an important topic.

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Sherlock as an example of male friendship. The author is probably overstating it a bit that it's the best example ever but it is certainly a very good example of what male friendship should look like.

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A collection of unique town slogans you are unlikely to see anywhere else.

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Dr. Albert Mohler on developing a Christian worldview:

A robust and rich model of Christian thinking—the quality of thinking that culminates in a God-centered worldview—requires that we see all truth as interconnected. Ultimately, the systematic wholeness of truth can be traced to the fact that God is himself the author of all truth. Christianity is not a set of doctrines in the sense that a mechanic operates with a set of tools. Instead, Christianity is a comprehensive worldview and way of life that grows out of Christian reflection on the Bible and the unfolding plan of God revealed in the unity of the Scriptures. 

A God-centered worldview brings every issue, question, and cultural concern into submission to all that the Bible reveals, and it frames all understanding within the ultimate purpose of bringing greater glory to God. This task of bringing every thought captive to Christ requires more than episodic Christian thinking and is to be understood as the task of the church, and not merely the concern of individual believers. The recovery of the Christian mind and the development of a comprehensive Christian worldview will require the deepest theological reflection, the most consecrated application of scholarship, the most sensitive commitment to compassion, and the courage to face all questions without fear. 

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Secrets of creative success: an interview with Cheers writer Rob Long.

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Food for thought: quitting social media. These are all valid points to consider. Like anything else, you need to be wise in how you use it (if at all). 

Daily Links 1-20-14

A roundup of interesting links found on the web. In today's edition: tips for posting on social media, applying "Moneyball" techniques to paying for college, homeschool vs. public school, and more.

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Congratulations to my friend Annie Parsons who was featured in Fortune's Best Companies to Work For. Check out the unusual story of how she got her current job.

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Some food for thought on how we use social media:

I was a freshman in college when Facebook came out and I distinctly remember thinking, “why would I need this? I have AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace!” 

Well, times have changed. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (and a slew of other sites I’m not cool enough to know about) have simultaneously brought us closer together and driven us further apart. With the exception of a few universally offensive statements or pictures, it’s a rule-free zone where we can interact with society while accepting minimal personal responsibility for the implications of what we do.

In absence of guidelines for healthy and polite social media etiquette, we are left to determine our own boundaries for navigating the seemingly endless opportunities available to us. 

Before we snap one more picture of our hot chocolate topped with a foam leaf, perhaps we would benefit from a brief pause—an extra 30 seconds to ask five simple questions might suggest it’s time to unplug, or at least reconsider when and how we use social media.

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Debunking five popular e-mail myths. In reading over this I realized that I've fallen victim to believing a few of these. Makes me rethink how I am using my e-mail.

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Fun facts to know and tell at parties: why fake phone numbers start with "555".

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Implementing a "Moneyball" approach to a debt free college degree. I have a few friends who have used this approach for either part or all of their college education. While I wouldn't consider doing the entire degree this way it is worth considering as part of the degree.

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Homeschooling is not for everyone. Neither is public school:

If you’ve ever spent any time around homeschool parents (or kids), one of the first things they will tell you is that homeschooling is not for everybody. Not every parent is cut out for homeschooling; more important, neither is every kid. 

That is why, unlike those who wish to suppress homeschooling, homeschool parents are rarely if ever heard demanding that the government pass a law demanding that every other family in the country do things the way they do. Unlike our German friends, homeschool parents do not wish to seize custody of other people’s children simply because they prefer a different model of education. The irony here is that more than a few of our public schools are so dangerous and dysfunctional that sending one’s children there really ought to be considered an act of neglect, if not for the fact that those poor parents have practically no choice in the matter. 

As an aside, I’d like to put to rest the canard that homeschoolers are socially maladjusted. In my time teaching, I had the pleasure of having a number of students in my class who had been homeschooled. Some were very bright and engaging, some were not; some were super gregarious, some were not; some were the very picture of emotional and social confidence, and some were not. Which is to say, they were more or less the same as the other kids, with the sole exception of having on average slightly better manners. The traditional classroom is an environment that works for many people, but it is a highly unnatural one: If being locked in a room seven hours a day with 20 other people all born within nine months of each other were a condition for proper socialization, then mankind was never properly socialized until the middle of the 19th century or so. And of course it matters who those other 20 kids are, and who their parents are. I was blessed to attend exceptional public schools, and we call things “exceptional” because they are the exception. 

We have 900 kinds of shampoo on the shelves and 40 different kinds of fresh fish at my neighborhood Whole Foods. Anybody who sees all that but thinks that there is only one good model of education is in no position to criticize anybody’s education.

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Daily Links 10-28-13

An always entertaining assortment of links served fresh daily. In today's post, the most famous book set in each state, giving up the news, busyness is the enemy of good, and more.

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Here's a roundup of the most famous book set in each state in the United States. What do you think of the selection from your home state? I'm not sure that I agree with the selection for Virginia. (Hat tip: Susan Wise Bauer)

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Long before we gave up cable (a story for another day) I had pretty much stopped watching the news. Part of the reason is much of the primetime programming isn't really news at all. Mostly my decision to stop watching the news came from this song by Chris Rice:

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Busyness is the enemy:

Charles Spurgeon wisely said, “Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.” And I not so wisely have turned myself into a pretzel trying to learn Latin. Not actually read Latin, of course, just do the mental equivalent of it. It takes its toll on my energy, my spiritual growth, my relationships, and my ability to do anything well.

I don’t see life slowing down anytime in the next weeks or months. In fact, I know I’m on the threshold of what could be one of the busiest or deepest growth seasons of my life. I want to be faithful with the time, to redeem it, to rest in it, to rely on the Father through it. But this is my confession—busy is the other four-letter word for me. I hate busy. It is just as much a thief of my soul as being “fine.”

Hat tip: Blogging Theologically

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A roundup of the ten best songs about baseball players.

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A neat collection of family tradition ideas.

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Aaron Earls asks some tough and necessary questions about teenagers and social media:

A 12-year-old girl in Florida committed suicide after she was repeatedly and relentlessly bullied online by classmates. Unfortunately, these types of stories are becoming more and more frequent with too many parents being caught unaware of what their child was enduring.

As a parent of three, one of which just started middle school this year, these stories make me want to lock him in a room until he's no longer a threat to himself or others. Or even more to the point, I want to perfectly shield him from other students who seemingly fail to recognize as human those different from them. 

But I know that's not possible. Being hurt is part of living and growing. Love, on some level, requires at least the possibility of pain. Love takes risks. That goes for him as he is growing and it goes for me as a parent. Loving him means I allow him to grow and I risk letting him be hurt. 

Having said that, loving him also means I do not remain blind to avoidable dangers that lurk in front of him. He may not see them, but it's my job to spot them and protect him as needed. One of the dangers that parents seem to continually be naive to is social media, until it is too late as was the case in Florida.

So I'm going to ask parents two questions about social media. Hopefully, this steps on toes and anger some people because something needs to change or we will continue to see deadly consequences of cyber bullying.

Daily Links 10-21-13

Is Paleo just a fad diet, the downfalls of teenagers on social media, the differences between buzzwords and leadership, and more in today's roundup of links.

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Is Paleo just another fad diet or is there something more to it? Speaking from personal experience, Paleo has been a life-changing decision for me. About a year ago I was getting sick all the time. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. My doctor was stumped. Then I finally stumbled across Breaking the Vicious Cycle and started following the guidelines closely. My health changed dramatically and started to lose weight. Paleo is closely related to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and the approaches are similar. Eating Paleo has made a big difference in my life. If you're dealing with digestive issues it's worth a try to see if it will make a difference.

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This week marks the return of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot to the small screen. Of course, Britain gets to see it first. American viewers will have to wait until next year thanks to PBS. To whet your appetite, ITV has posted a trailer on their website. These will be the last four movies in the entire canon.

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Habits of successful people: They start before they feel ready. This is a fascinating article.

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Have you ever looked closely at company logos? They may be trying to tell you something.

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This is a frightening list: seven everyday foods that could kill you. (Hat tip: Food Riot)

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The downside of teenagers being constantly connected to their electronic devices. For what its worth, this is an area where we have treaded carefully with our own daughters.

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10 differences between buzzwords and leadership:

On several occasions when teaching, I’ve noted the difference between buzzwords and leadership. In fact, I think that a key facet of leadership is knowing the difference between a strategy and a collection of buzzwords. In the corporate world, there are a multitude of buzzwords (and phrases) that need to fall out of existence. And, yes, I’m an offending party on several of these.

Hat tip: Justin Taylor

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I find to-do lists are really helpful in managing my day to day tasks. Here's a fascinating history of the to-do list and how to make them work better for you.

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This is fun: A list of 25 movies that you might not know were based on books.(Hat tip: Book Riot)

Daily Links 9-13-13

Happy Friday! Among today's links: the power of five words, why David McCullough writes on a typewriter,

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5 Words vs. 5 Lies:

2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” That’s not the whole verse, but those five words say enough to meditate on for a lifetime. The fact that the words of Scripture are the words of God Himself is significant. And I think those five words, “All Scripture is God-breathed,” help us fight some of the lies that we sometimes believe about the Bible.

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Why David McCullough writes on a typewriter:

I write on an old Royal typewriter, a beauty! I bought it secondhand in 1964, before I started  The Johnstown Flood, and I’ve written all my books on it. It was made about 1941 and it works perfectly. I have it cleaned and oiled about once every book and the roller has to be replaced now and then. Otherwise it’s the same machine. Imagine—it’s more than fifty years old and it still does just what it was built to do! There’s not a thing wrong with it.

The entire interview is worth reading. Hat tip Justin Taylor.

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This is the downside of being part of a generation raised on social media: For Millenials Connections are Easy, Friendships are Hard. (hat tip Instapundit)

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11 real weapons used in World War II that you've probably never heard of. (Hat tip Mental Floss)

Daily Links 9-10-13

Vin Scully, statements for leaders, work attitudes and more in today's edition of Daily Links.

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Vin Scully is one of the best storytellers around. But this story about growing up in parochial school is amazing. Best line: "why in the world would you want to change God's work?"

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5 Important Attitudes to Embrace at Work:

American Christians have a rather uneasy relationship with work. On Sunday, the lay person hears an impassioned message about sacrifice, self-denial, and the mission of God. He might be treated to a stirring testimony of a wealthy CEO who gave up a promising career to enter "full-time" ministry.

Then, Monday morning happens. He takes his place on the factory line, at a desk, in a garage, or behind the wheel. The guilt and shame surge up inside of him, for he thinks that if he were truly committed to Jesus, if he were part of the A-team of Christians in the world, he wouldn't get a check from a "secular" corporation or small business, but from a Christian company such as a church or a parachurch organization. 

I've lived on both sides of this secular-sacred divide. My dad is a plumber. He's a committed husband and father who's given himself in service to his church. But still he's ... just a plumber. He's not a pastor or missionary or worship leader. At times, I've felt that Dad was made to feel as if he were on God's junior varsity. As if his entrance into glory won't be met with the same applause as those who delivered the sermons on Sunday.

I'm also a pastor and have had to guard against unwittingly shaming the hardworking lay people I serve, simply because I'm privileged to work, full-time, in the business of church. Some pastors might consider themselves more dedicated and more like Jesus than those who sling it in the real world, getting their hands dirty in jobs that seem less than sacred. Although the pastoral and missionary callings are sober, serious endeavors, they don't ascribe any more glory to the sinners who occupy them. Moreover, if faithfulness is God's measure of success, everywhere you serve is God's theater.

Hat tip: Thom Rainer

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Making the case for not posting your kid's information online (hat tip Challies).

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Some very honest (and important) advice on dating:

Don’t date just for the sake of dating. Sure, you can take a stroll through the park just for the sake of strolling through the park, but dating ain’t a stroll through the park. It’s a complicated and serious thing; it can also be fun, but it isn’t something you should do for pure recreation. Dating is supposed to be a means to an end. Or, maybe a better way of putting it, dating is a means to a beginning.

To put it simply: If you know for a fact that you would never marry a certain person, then you shouldn’t be in a romantic relationship with them. Knowingly staying in a relationship without a future is like riding a dying horse into the desert. It’s a slow, painful death march, and there is no chance of it working out in your favor. So go ahead and date, but date with a purpose. Date with a goal. Date with your eyes toward marriage. I know that might seem old fashioned. In fact it is old fashioned, which is why you should listen to it.

Back in those old, dark days, they didn’t have anything called “dating”; instead they had “courtship.” And courting would have looked a lot like dating, with one difference: There was a point. They had a purpose. They had a goal. They were interested in being adults and making a commitment, and the courting process would tell them whether they should or could make that commitment to each other. Marriage was the ultimate destination, and if it became apparent that this destination could not be reached, they ended the courtship and moved on with their lives. The modern dating strategy is different. You don’t have one common goal or desired destination. Instead, you spin in circles together until someone gets dizzy and jumps off. The sudden stop sends the other person hurtling into space, while you wander aimlessly away, searching desperately for another random stranger to latch onto for an indefinite period of false hopes and disappointments.

Be sure to read the whole thing.\

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Did you know the Star Trek theme song had lyrics?

Daily Links 9-9-13

The challenges of spelling, more benefits of owning a Kindle, and more in today's edition.

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Why is English spelling so messed up? Mental Floss has the answer.

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It was only a matter of time:

that it would let customers who bought certain print books download the electronic versions of those titles for a small fee, or for free. For anyone who buys both kinds of books, myself included, the service, which Amazon calls Kindle MatchBook, raises a simple question: What took so long?

I had wondered when this was going to happen. Just another reason to own a Kindle.

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14 Lessons of the New Workplace Millenials Need to Master. Actually reading over this list just about anyone who works in the business world should apply these lessons.

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This is an amazing story:

Brigitte Höss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences. Brigitte also has a secret that not even her grandchildren know. Her father was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz. It was Rudolf Höss who designed and built Auschwitz from an old army barracks in Poland to a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour. By the end of the war, 1.1 million Jews had been killed in the camp, along with 20,000 gypsies and tens of thousands of Polish and Russian political prisoners. As such, Brigitte’s father was one of the biggest mass murderers in history. For nearly 40 years she has kept her past out of public view, unexamined, not even sharing her story with her closest family members.

But here is one of the best parts of this story:

In 1972 they moved to Washington. Brigitte’s husband took a senior job with a transportation company, and they bought a house in Georgetown. It was a chance for Brigitte to start over. Brigitte struggled — she didn’t know how to write a check, spoke little English and was without friends or family. After some searching, she found a part-time job in a fashion boutique. One day a short Jewish lady visited the boutique. She liked Brigitte’s style and asked her to come work in her fashion salon in the District. Soon after she was hired, Brigitte says, she got drunk with her manager and confessed that her father was Rudolf Höss. The manager told the store’s owner. The owner told Brigitte that she could stay, that she had not committed any crime herself. What Brigitte did not know, at least not until later, was that the store owner and her husband were Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany after the Kristallnacht attacks of 1938. Brigitte was thankful for being seen as a person, rather than her father’s daughter. She worked at the store for 35 years, serving prominent Washingtonians, including the wives of senators and congressmen. The store owner returned Brigitte’s loyalty and hard work by keeping her secret. With the exception of one other manager, none of the other staff knew the truth about Brigitte’s family history.

Be sure to read the whole thing.
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Ten things I've Learned on Twitter. Some interesting tips for folks who want to use Twitter more effectively. (hat tip Thom Rainer)
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Why Duck Dynasty Viewers Heed Its Call (hat tip Acculturated). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Robertsons are real, down to earth, honest to goodness folks.

Weekend Links 9-7-13

In case you missed it, some of the links featured here during the week:

Don't Let Social Media Ruin Your Marriage

Tips for Teenage Girls on Social Media

Nutella Cake (with recipe and photos)

Ten Questions to Help You Identify Your Calling/Vocation

World War I prisoner asks for leave to visit dying mother, agrees to return to prison (and does)

Test your grammar skills: You Can't Write Proper English Under Pressure

Are you a Calvinist?

Life Lessons from Winnie the Pooh

Daily Links 9-5-13

A story of honor, the dangers of cohabitating, partisan journalism, and advice to teenage girls using social media in this morning's links.

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The most amazing books we have ever read as a family were the Winnie the Pooh books. The best thing about them is that they are chock full of life lessons.

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This is an amazing story of honor from World War I:

Captain Robert Campbell, aged 29, was captured just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany in July, 1914.

But after two years in Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp the British officer received word from home his mother Louise Campbell was close to death.

He speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II begging to be allowed home to visit his mother one final time.

Incredibly the German leader granted the request allowing the professional office two weeks leave - as long as he returned.

The only bond he placed on the leave was Capt Campbell's ‘word' as an army officer.

He returned to his family home in Gravesend Kent in December 1916 and spent a week with his cancer-stricken mother.

He then kept his promise by returning to his German prison - where he stayed until the war ended in 1918.

Thanks to my lovely bride for the tip.

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It would seem logical to live together before getting married. But it isn't. Eric Metaxas explains.

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Jake Tapper is by far one of the best reporters on television. The Washington Post Magazine recently published an interview that is well worth reading. An excerpt:

I’d like to think that people on both the left and the right think that I’m fair. The media keeps evolving in this way, where television channels and anchors and reporters pick sides. And that’s not healthy. One of the problems with the media landscape today is that there is a reluctance to get people who will ask tough questions even if they are fair, even if they are smart and serious and substantive questions. That’s why certain politicians from certain parties favor certain channels or reporters.

Believe me, there is nothing wrong with partisan journalism. That’s how journalism started; I’m not criticizing it for existing — it should exist. The issue is when it’s presented as, These are just the facts. That blurring of opinion and more factual journalism that doesn’t pick sides. It can be challenging if you are not in the business of reaffirming the worldview of more ideological viewers. But I think there is an audience of viewers and journalists and politicians who respect the need for anchors who you don’t know who they voted for for president.

Hat tip: Get Religion

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 Some wise words for teenage girls using social media.

Daily Links 9-2-13

Happy Labor Day! Here are some links for your edification as you prepare to go back to work tomorrow.

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"What do you do for a living?" is a common question to ask someone you meet for the first time. How should a Christian respond?

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The media trumpets a story on the success of "breadwinner moms" but overlooks the more important (and troubling statistics) that the study reveals.

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5 things you need to unlearn to succeed at work. Yes, there are things you need to unlearn.

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Don't let social media ruin your marriage. Some of these tips may seem pretty basic but there are a number of good tips here.

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Sometimes in business it's better to just pick up the phone. While I don't particularly like spending a lot of time on the phone I do find it's often easier to make a call than send an e-mail. What also seems to be missing today is a lot of the face-to-face interaction that used to take place in business. Technology is great and can be really convenient but sometimes it helps to use old-fashioned methods to build rapport with your business partners.

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Dispelling misconceptions about the value of our work. (hat tip Chailles)

Know Your Social Media: Twitter

I am not a huge fan of social media though over the years I have created accounts on different platforms. I have a Facebook account, a Pinterest account, a LinkedIn profile and a Twitter account. Of all of these the most useful to me are Twitter and LinkedIn each for different reasons. In this post, I want to highlight some of the things I have learned about Twitter including its pros and cons and how to make it a more useful tool.

The first thing you have to decide is how you plan to use Twitter. Are you using it to keep in touch with other people or is it more informational? Personally, I use it primarily as a news feed. I find it's an easy way to keep track of things I am interested in. My feed is a great way to keep track of news and other events.

It also allows me to keep up with writers that I enjoy reading. I don't have to keep track of their blogs or websites if I know that they will send a tweet out with a link to their latest piece.

Second, you have to decide who to follow. By clicking on a person's profile you can see all their tweets. Since I am mostly concerned with news links I tend to weed out folks that use as many (if not more) of their tweets in conversation than publishing links to other stories. That's because I have limited opportunities to check my feed (see below for more on that) and conversations are sometimes more difficult to follow.

As noted above, you also need to determine how often you'll have an opportunity to check your feed. The blessing (and curse) of Twitter is there is always something new to be posted. It will quickly feed the sense of   missing something if you're not checking your feed a hundred times a day. The number of times you are going to be able to check your feed will also influence how many people you will follow and they types of folks you follow (do they tweet numerous times a day or only occasionally?).

You will likely develop a completely separate circle of influence apart from your other social networks. For example, most of my followers are people I don't know personally. But it one way or another we probably share a common interest. So it allows me to share ideas with people I would not normally have an opportunity to speak to.

Also, Twitter has a useful tool that allows you to link to your Facebook page so that whenever you send out a new tweet it will also post to your Facebook timeline. This is great because then you don't have to worry about posting the link yourself. It also allows whatever you share to be circulated among your friends (who are more than likely going to be a separate and distinct group from other social media followers).

Finally, you need to know that brevity is both its biggest asset and its biggest liability. Yes, the 140 character limit forces you to be pithy in your commentary (apologies to Bill O'Reilly). But it's also hard to flesh out a complicated idea one tweet at a time. This is why Twitter works so well as an aggregator because it allows you drive traffic to other sites. It also (naturally) limits the amount of personal information to as much or as little as you want to share.

One more side note: if you have a blog you need to be on Twitter for no other reason than to drive traffic to your blog. And if you utilize hashtags properly you can open up to a wider audience than just your own followers.

Of all the social media platforms I use, Twitter is by far my favorite for the reasons above. Give it a try if you haven't already. And make sure to follow me @Daddypundit.

Saying Goodbye to Facebook

This morning I did something I had been thinking about for quite a while. For many in our internet-connected culture it will seem a little counter-cultural and probably would leave some scratching their heads. I deactivated by Facebook account.

This was a decision brought on (in part) by recent events in the news involving a congressman's online extracurricular activities. But it was also something I had been thinking about because I was never really comfortable allowing others to connect to me.

Granted, while I was on Facebook I did connect to college friends as well as members of my extended family. I managed to reconnect with folks I hadn't spoken to in many years.

I rarely received an unwanted message and can count on one hand the number of times I received an invitation to be friends with someone I didn't know.

It was convenient to have the news feed from a lot of different blogs and websites I follow in one central place. But there are other applications that allow that function without connecting with strangers.

I only signed up in the beginning because my girls were curious about having their own account. I signed up because I wasn't familiar with it at the time and needed to see what it was all about before allowing my girls to get on it. Ultimately I decided they didn't need an account and they both agreed with my decision.

But I still couldn't help shake the nagging feeling that this was not a good thing to have. I've never been interested in having a Twitter account and don't bother following anyone. While I enjoyed being on Facebook, increasingly I didn't have time to keep up with it or find things to share.

My mind kept coming back to a book I read several years ago by Jerry Jenkins entitled Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It. It talks very frankly about sexual sin and how it can subtly enter into your marriage. In order to protect our marriages, we need to build "hedges" which are ground rules for interacting with the opposite sex that protect us from falling into the trap that sexual sin can put us in.

Increasingly what I realized was that with my Facebook account I was tearing a huge hole in the hedges that I had been placing around my marriage. Although I never had any issues while I was on Facebook I felt it was better to get out before a problem arose.

Social media can be a wonderful thing. But it also provides a wealth of danger. Recent news stories have shown that Facebook contributes to divorce. The bottom line is while it may seem innocent to reconnect with old friends it can present danger.

I know plenty of people that are on Facebook and have not run into any issues. I think whether to be involved in social media or not is a personal choice that each individual has to make. As I said before, I didn't have any problems with being on Facebook. But when I weigh everything together, it's better for me personally to not be out there allowing myself to be set up as a target for temptation. I don't want to do anything that puts my marriage and my family at risk. For me, the risks involved with being on Facebook outweigh the rewards.