A few quick notes

Those of you (yes, you MN) following both the blog and the links on the left will note that Burnside is no longer on there. I'm pretty sure no one would have noticed but I'm bringing it up because I want to say something about it. When I first stumbled on to this site, thanks to a much over-hyped and merely adequate book, Blue Like Jazz, I counted it as the book's true blessing. It was full of real live Christians that somehow also managed to be real people that you could identify with, people who asked questions, had fun, liked "inappropriate" things, and sometimes provided stellar insight into an issue that excited me. It was believers of many walks. I didn't agree with their treatment of some topics--race, for example (I found it to be patronizing), but still, these were people I thought I could have a beer with and have an honest discussion about faith.

Like all of us, they've been going through some changes and the changes bother me in ways I'm inadequate to articulate. Plainly, I think their ambition has clouded their vision. I'm completely making this up but I imagine that like all us would-be-writers, they felt that desire to share their work with even more people. At the core of that, I believe, is either a need for validation or recognition. They are changing into something we already have and in the process, losing the thing I loved about Burnside, its irreverence. It has become politicized in that horrible insincere way that occurs when religion and politics intersect. And so, I have removed them from my site because I don't want it to be assumed we're of the same mind on these things. I still read them everyday and today was a return to some irreverence but if the political posts are indicative of the direction of the site...well as sure as they'll lament and grieve my lack of patronage, still I will have to let them go.

Speaking of changes, I tried for a little while to write more topically and less blatant on-line therapy. I hoped it would be more popular (hah) and maybe even broaden the appeal outside of people who know me personally and want to know who IBC or Rock Star are. But I need therapy so we shall return back to my core blogging topics; me and how I feel about me. I might rename the blog to something more accurate like, Self-involvement 101, but expect it to pick up some of the heavy wet blanket of the original recipie.