Welcome To The Demographic

I'm reminded of my Dad, who worked for the Baptist Sunday School Board in my early childhood. He traveled around and sold audio-visual systems to churches, back in the day when AV meant film, slide, and overhead projectors. He was fired after an argument with his boss when he wouldn't try to upsell more AV equipment than he thought a church needed.

I'm reminded of my Dad because of this snappy article at CNET: Is Jesus The Next Killer App?

The title is meaningless, but as I've noted, saying "Jesus" gets people's attention. Some choice quotes:

"There's not one major electronics manufacturer who isn't trying to target this space," said Dan Stark, who operates Stark Raving Solutions, a company that specializes in outfitting churches with the latest in audio and video technology.

And:

"Let's face it, we've all experienced the occasional sleeper on Sunday morning," says an Internet advertisement from Audio Visual Mart, an online media tools store. "But it doesn't have to be that way. Technology can inspire your congregation in new ways."

Mercifully, these Baalful proclamations come from manufacturers and retailers, not the churches. The writer seems to have spent more time talking to marketing flacks than their customers. Curious. My first thought is to tie this to my idea of journalists being uncomfortable with religion, but it could also just be laziness. Or something more innocent, I suppose.

I don't know where I'm going with collecting these beasts, but I hope you enjoy my growing zoo of them.

O Sole Mio

There's no indie cred for this kind of thing, but I've been an alternate energy goob since the '70s, when we really could have started working on alternate energy and had it make a difference by now. NOT THAT I'M BITTER. Solar energy in particular has always been a big deal to me. It's also always been too expensive.

I'm going to take the scenic route through my economic theory before we get back to solar power.

I've always found Mr. Smith's invisible hand of capitalism suspect, the idea that people acting in a consistently self-interested manner creates a suitable economic equilibrium. This is a pretty idea from 10,000 feet. On the ground, there's a hella lot of misery before equilibrium makes the scene.

In general, economists and mathematicians seem to treat economics as some great, mysterious ocean where we bob like tubs. That's bogus. The economy is what we all do. We can make the economy do whatever we want it to. There is no invisible hand. There is predictable consequence for our choices.

This is not a top 1% thing. This is everybody. Do we want to create more jobs? Then those of us who own businesses can choose to forgo some profit and hire more people. Do we want to slow down inflation? Then we all agree to charge each other less for our services.

This is simplistic, but not very. We just need a common vision and our decisions from there will cause everything else to fall into place. It's happening now. Right now, our common vision is that each person optimally amasses resources for him or herself. This is called "enlightened self-interest" and assumes that we'll all choose to be greedy.

However, we can also choose not to be greedy. We can decide to amass fewer resources as individuals, and give more to other individuals or community purposes. I'm not talking about charity, I'm talking about mutually finding another base assumption besides, "Everyone will be greedy because that's how people are."

Many people would cheat and act greedy anyway, sure, but many people also steal. We can have common behavioral standards which many people break, and retain a functional society.

Yet a number of people draw a weird, crooked line that says, "We believe theft is bad, even though many people steal anyway; however, we won't believe greed is bad, because everybody's greedy, right? Right?"

I'm not making an airtight argument, I know, but stay with me. My point is that we make the economy every day; the economy does not make us. To think differently is to allow yourself to be controlled.

Okay: solar power.

To run your house on solar energy currently costs about 2-5 times as much as buying electricity through your local utility (solarbuzz.com). The argument has been that photovoltaic (PV) cells are too expensive, and it requires open, unclouded sky, and you pay all the infrastructure costs yourself, and a bunch of other reasons. Therefore, common sense economics tell us that solar is nice, but no one will do it because it's too expensive.

If you slogged through my opinion on economics, you can tell I think this is horsefeces. Not because I think we can all magically decide to charge less for solar. Rather, because we've put 250 years and unknown trillions of R&D dollars into making fossil fuels work, whereas we've been working on solar energy seriously for maybe 20 years, funded mainly by government grants. We decided to make fossil fuels more important.

Solar power is not inherently more expensive. Solar power is more expensive because our common vision has valued fossil fuels over solar power. We choose to make solar power more expensive.

Just in this decade though, a small number of us (mostly science-types and venture capitalists) are choosing to find ways to not make solar power more expensive. Newly discovered technology is showing up that makes the whole deal cheaper. Two examples:

• Prism Solar Technologies is making holographic solar collectors to feed PV cell. No big mirror banks, just a rainbow array of holographs that steers light into PV cells. Non-technical explanation here.
• Spheral Solar makes "denim-power," flexible solar cells that look like denim, and use recycled silicon -- silicon shortages become irrelevant.

As more people decide to care about solar power, it will become cheaper. In the next 10 years, solar could replace fossil fuel energy. It won't. We're in for mixed use for a long time. But if we found a common vision, we could be green by 2015. I know that's crazy fast, but it rhymes. Sounded like a nice slogan for somebody, maybe. "Green by 2015!"

It would be very, very hard to do, but not impossible. It's just that we're going to choose to not do it.

The Sum Of Things

An article about the very last ninja:

The teachings of Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi echo through my head as he entreats me to attack a blackbelted disciple with a practice sword. "Always be able to kill your students," he says.

...As he nimbly glides across the padded floor, Hatsumi showers students with cryptic proverbs straight out of Confucian scrolls, such as "anything can be used as a weapon" or "ninjutsu is the sum of things in the universe."

Listen, I don't know much about ninjas. But if I was a grand warrior master of stealth, I would totally want you to believe there was only one of us. And I would find some other guy, give him a headful of mystical phrases, and send him around to say things like, "I'm the last, best ninja!"

Because then you'd be watching him, and not me and my 50 ninja buddies who are sneaking into your home to kill you with poisoned nunchuks.

Killing the Buddha

I found somebody doing the thinking about religion and journalism. His name is Jeff Sharlet. He co-founded a site called Killing the Buddha, which I have known about for years, and sort of drifts in and out of my awareness.

KtB publishes articles and essays about people grappling with religion, any religion. I've found it interesting, but I've never been able to really feel it for a couple of reasons. Often at KtB, they're speaking not just a different language but an idiolect: trying to communicate something so personal and pre-verbal that it just doesn't come across.

But also because I have always operated under the assumption that I'm missing something when it comes to religion. I'm frequently dissatisfied with my religion and the intersection of religions, and bewildered by faith (including why I have it at all). But I've concluded I believe in a God who is fundamentally bigger than me and acting my best interests.

It isn't that I don't question or doubt; it is that when I question or doubt, the first place I look is inside. What am I missing? If I'm operating under the premise that God is omnipotent and loving, then I must assume his shit is together. The wild card is my reason and perception.

Intellectually, I've been down the road where God doesn't match that premise, and that road leads to heat death. So I don't spend a lot of time there. As far as I can tell, either Jesus is as advertised, or existence is meaningless. I know! So absolute! But there it is.

So reading a bunch of essays about how confusing religions are, I mean, I feel you brother, but you know, order up some fear and trembling and get to work on that.

Anyway, KtB is worth looking at. And Jeff Sharlet's other site, The Revealer, is the whole reason I'm writing this post. From the About Us section:

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion. We're not so much nonpartisan as polypartisan -- interested in all sides, disdainful of dualistic arguments, and enamored of free speech as a first principle.... We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion. Sharper thinking. Deeper history. Thicker description. Basic theology. Real storytelling.

This is a big step in the direction I'm looking. Not afraid of religion in news media, but not prostrate before sectarian interests.

Mammon's Got A New Thing

More on noticing that Christians are part of the culture, not refugees from it.

Nothing new about news media, but I found an article in the March issue of Fast Company about an... entrepreneur, we’ll call him, one of the flock, who has figured out that Christians are a wildly marketable demographic.*

It’s short, but here’s a pullquote anyway:

To get pastors to steer their flocks to the multiplex, Bock woos the Christian press to meet with filmmakers, organizes screenings, and creates Bible study guides. All of which, analysts say, can sell $50 million in extra tickets and millions more copies of a DVD. "To not recognize [churchgoers] as a massive demographic is just bad business," Bock says. "It would be like not tracking men."

Hooray!

Or is it a hooray? I've argued it makes good business sense too. But since when do I give a flying rat’s ass about business?

Clearly, Christians are a fat, unexploited market. “Christian” media in the last 50 years have been, even in these empowered DIY times, 3 to 5 years behind the culture at large. Which is weird, because Christians are part of the culture at large. We produce and consume behind-the-curve media even as we help create up-to-the-minute culture. I have a feeling that has to do with a stilted expectation of what God finds appropriate, based on what our parents find appropriate. That’s just spitballing though.

The point is, we’re ripe for up-to-the-minute cultural participation. And someone, probably multiple someones, in positions to do something about it, are now paying attention.

But look, here’s an important word of warning, American Christians: Do not fall for this.

I have no reason to doubt Mr. Bock’s sincerity or religion. He could be following a genuine calling. But identification as a marketable demographic is the bottom of a mountain for us, not the top.

One reason it has taken so long for mainstream media to find us is that traditionally we have had all-different priorities. We were interested in hard-to-market ideas like patience, purity, self-control, holiness, goodness, and of course, Jesus. Not that mainstream media don’t value these as well, but their central value is WHAT SELLS. And since their main thing isn’t even on our list, we didn’t have a lot to talk about at parties, yo? Besides, they were already getting our money through other demographics (a/s/l).

I used to work at a game company. Around 1999, one of our business people talked to some Christians on staff about prospects for a licensed Left Behind game. We discussed it a bit, and she eventually dropped the idea. Not because the Christians she consulted were against the idea (though we agreed the books were awful) but I think, because the only way to sell it to the Christian market required a sincerity and faith – dare I say, a commitment – she didn’t possess.

I think she was a few years ahead of her time, and frankly, too moral to try to commit herself to milking a cash cow she didn’t believe in. I don’t think this recent wave, fronted by Christian beards like John Bock, have the same compunctions. They’re not against us. They’re just not for our God. We must keep this distinction in front of us. Like, phylactery in front of us.

It’s good to do business with nonbelievers. It’s very bad to get in bed with nonbelievers. We are experiencing a new recognition and it’s our job to use this recognition well, to advance the Kingdom, not to lean back and feel safe that someone recognized that our money is as green as the heathens’. Because as we meet this new opportunity, it is the very opposite of safe. It doesn't matter whether the movie comes with a Bible study guide. It matters where your heart is.

I feel like I have not found the creamy nougat center of what I want to say, but I’ve been trying to write this for a week, and I want to post something. More as I think and research.

*There is a similar NPR report I will link to when I find it.

Where God Lives

These maps, taken from data collected by the Glenmary Research Center, graphically identify the distribution of several large religious groups in the U.S. I didn’t find any surprises, except for an odd concentration of Quakers in north Alaska. (Percentages on parade, I suspect.) But it's still kind of neat.

Search Query: Where Will I Be Next Thursday Around Threeish?

Google introduces an online calendar program. It's getting good buzz in various other blogs that I won't bother linking to here. The lead to the linked USA Today article reads:

Hoping to beef up the underperforming online calendar market, Internet search giant Google late Wednesday introduced a calendar service notable for easy-access sharing among friends and family.

Do... do what? There's an online calendar market? According to the article Yahoo, AOL, and MSN already offer this service. I guess I knew this, in the same sense that I know these companies will also track stocks for me, and that I have no desire for them to ever do this.

Google hosts my blog and my email; I'm already giving them plenty of free information, thanks. We'll let my daily whereabouts be a tantilizing mystery.

Ka-Zing!

Iran is enriching uranium, and I'm frankly surprised the current administration is so unhappy about it. Isn't enrichment at other countries' expense an American pasttime?

Open A Window

Man, is it just me, or has it been all Jesusy around here lately? Time to talk about something else.

Like bladders! I am nerdily excited by the prospect of growing replacement organs. I've got reservations about stem cell harvesting for all the reasons people have reservations about that sort of thing. But this story is about using your own damn cells to grow your own damn organs and I'm so! happy! it's already happening in real life.

Also, very small cars! Suck it, Cooper Mini.

'60s Batman onomatopoeia screen caps! The gallery lacks my favorite ever (Brom) but contains other beauties, including "Ouch-eth."

Finally, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the musical! You can even download the songs, which range from decent to actually pretty good. If you don't think this is awesome, you are dead to me.

Religion In The News

This was a longish footnote to the previous post, but I decided to promote it.

Le Review: I had been reading Newsweek articles and ruminating on whether they had a dedicated religion person. So I went digging.

Good thing too, because the electronic masthead for MSNBC was buried. (Newsweek's online presence is hosted on MSNBC's site.) Once I found it, I discovered they have a correspondent dedicated to "ethics and values in American society." I wonder if that aerogel umbrella is supposed to cover religion and faith.

They also have a correspondent whose beat includes "Asian-American relations." According to the 2000 U.S. census, 4.2% of the population identifes itself somehow with the word "Asian." Nearly twice as many people self-identify as Methodist in the United States (Wikipedia). Dubbaya-tee-eff, mainstream news media?

I'm not complaining here. As Stephen Colbert says, Christians in the U.S. are "a long-oppressed majority." Boo-hoo for us.

No, I'm actually confused. Why doesn't thoughtful Christian representation fly in mainstream news media? (I'm also curious in a larger religious sense, but I'll just discuss Christianity here, since that's what I'm familiar with, and I don't want to have to think about how to write this so it includes Buddhism.)

If you can write a news story aimed at the American public, you can certainly write to a significant, though fractious subset of Americans. It's not hard to write to sports fans, a notably cantakerous lot. It's not hard to write an editorial page, a newspaper section practically designed to foment division.

Someone must be thinking about this. There's too much at stake for no one to be working on this, or at least for there not to be a good reason for its absence. Am I missing something big and obvious? Can it be as stupidly simple as a gross underrepresentation of Christians inside media? I read something to that effect once, that a majority of reporters aren't terribly religious, and shy away from the topic personally, allowing their blindside bias to affect their reporting. I wish I had the reference for that. I've also read conflicting reports.

But there's so freaking much money to be made from American Christendom. Even if you think God is an illucid fairy tale, we're a rich, loyal demographic. Mel Gibson has proven this. Tim LaHaye has proven this. Why do news media approach us from the side, through politics and social issues, instead of where we really are?

I'm figuring this out, talking before having done significant research. More later. Possibly.

P.S. 4/1/06
This entry is changing as I think about it more. Tonight I found the website of Frederica Matthewes-Green, who I wish I'd known about sooner. She has this marginally related thing to say about being a Christian in a hostile culture, which might not be very hostile. Or maybe it is. Or maybe hostility isn't the point. It's longish (for the Web) but worth the time you'll spend on it.