If reading Rapture Ready – or at least the chapter that appeared in The New Yorker – has left you with an interest in all things Bible-publishing related, you'll want to check out this article by Chris Faraone in the Boston Phoenix on how many of the innovations in e-reading on the iPhone are coming from Bible aps.

If you want to see what a 21st century reading experience should look like — one that enables you to bookmark, notate, listen to, and share passages instantly on Facebook and Twitter — the marketplace you're looking for is e-Bibles. ... [O]ne version with a social-networking component even allows believers to search for other folks who want to chat about specific chapters. More so, it can tap a smart phone's GPS to locate local prayer groups with similar affinities.

And it is e-Bibles that have helped push technology forward, by allowing users to seamlessly flip between scanning on an iPhone and reading on a laptop (without losing their page). Ditto the ability to switch, mid-stream, between Standard English and dozens of translations, or jump to an audio-book version, while keeping place to the sentence. Learned readers can even teleport from one particular chapter/verse in the King James Version to the same place in the New International Version. The future is now.

Is it? The first set of features would translate well to other books – the ability to bookmark and annotate is already common on e-readers – and might even improve the quality of my Twitter feed. (New York magazine book critic Sam Anderson, is already tweeting the best sentence he reads each day, though presumably he has to type all 144 characters himself.) But would anyone really use their GPS to find a book club nearby that's discussing the latest Dan Brown or Elizabeth Gilbert opus? Or toggle between a half-dozen translations of Homer or Tolstoy? Even Faraone recognizes that some of these extras may only be useful for the Bible:

Still, the Bible's greatest asset for e-book adaptation is its age-old annotation, and e-Bible developers have been inspired by operability. Users can switch between languages and translations because the Bible has been parsed the same way forever. (Trying to accomplish the same thing with, say, the unabridged James Patterson collection would be considerably more labor intensive.)

But why would anyone would try that with Patterson's novels? Isn't the plain text enough? Yes, some non-fiction could use the extras – I'd probably be getting a lot more out of Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise if I had the companion media from his website more readily available – but most books, both fiction and non-fiction, are written to be read as is. And while we may start to see collectors' edition e-books full of DVD-type extras – deleted chapters, early drafts, editors' comments, author interviews – the way most of us do the majority or our reading will not change simply because the form of the book is now digital.

Which is fine. E-readers, like iPods, will change the way we buy, carry, and store books. [This is a potential boon for those of us who find our apartments overwhelmed with hardcovers and paperbacks, though some folks are upset that we won't know how smart they are unless we see Poe and Artaud on their shelves. Linda Holmes thinks we should rely on "rely on behavior and conversation for that," but that's far too much work.] But the way we read will probably stay the same. The E-Bibles succeed not because they transform the particular way we read the Bible, but because they match it. E-readers will succeed based on how well they do the same for the rest of literature.

7:46 PM :: Comments (6)

It would be an exaggeration to say that Frank McCourt is the reason I'm a writer, but to the extent that I'm not a terrible writer, he deserves a lot of the credit. McCourt was my high school English teacher. I took several classes with him — anybody who took one always pulled whatever strings they could to get more. It was from him that I learned to listen for "the poetry of everyday language." He despised ornament in writing, vastly preferring elegance. If he heard a word in an essay that wouldn't have come out of your mouth, he'd ask who was supposed to be speaking. And while I can't fully agree with him that no writer should ever use the word "trudge" for that reason, I know that I've never used it. He squeezed out my teenage tendency toward melodrama and clichéd romanticism and drew out gimlet-eyed honesty. He would not like that I just said "gimlet-eyed."

As you can imagine, McCourt's teaching method was largely storytelling. And singing. I will never hear Wild Mountain Thyme without thinking of him. He retired the same year I graduated, and by then he knew he was an inspiring figure. He used to say that when we went on to use his advice to write a book, he'd want 10 percent. Of course, by the time my first book came out, I could have given him 90 percent and it wouldn't have begun to approach 10 percent of what his made. Never has anyone deserved success more completely.

Over the years I'd run into McCourt periodically and he was always warm and friendly. I last saw him a few months ago at an event he did in Woodstock and when I gave him a copy of Rapture Ready! he held it up for the crowd and beamed, "Former student!" It was perhaps the most rewarding response I've had.

Beyond the practical lessons I learned in Frank McCourt's class, I'll always remember him as a model for how to be cynical without being jaded and sarcastic without being inhumane. I'm pretty sure he did not believe in God or an afterlife, but he had to believe that there is an immortality in living so that your words and actions transform the world around you in ways that will continue to reverberate forever. No one with so much life in him can ever truly die. And if there were an afterlife, I can guarantee you that somewhere right now, Frank McCourt would be mightily pissed off that he's not around for what's sure to be a hell of a wake.

7:53 PM :: Comments (18)

In case you were wondering what last week's excuse for the lack of blogging is, I've just returned from Los Angeles where I spent three or four days at E3, the world's largest and awesomest video game convention. On reflection, this is an odd excuse for not blogging, since it's pretty much one of those events that everyone who attends is required to blog about. In that spirit, and in a tip of the Raider Wastehound Helmet (DR +5) to the awards every gaming site gives out at the end of the show, I offer my own highly subjective, utterly meaningless 2009 E3 awards.

Most buzz for something almost nobody actually saw: Project Natal
OK, a handful of people saw it in person and were blown away by it. Everyone else professed intense skepticism — would it really work the way Microsoft said in the promo vid? would there be any non-gimmicky games for it? — but nobody was ignoring it. The Nintendo developer who shrugged it off as "Wii too syndrome" didn't sound quite as confident as he wanted. Still, the general tenor of the buzz remained: let's see how it looks next year.

Best game with no buzz whatsoever: Joy Ride
Off to one side of the Xbox booth was a single station set up with this cartoony racing game. I must have passed it a dozen times before finally picking up the controller for what may have been my most purely enjoyable ten minutes of the show. A near-perfect pick up and play game — it's a cute as hell use for your XBL avatar and pretty much crash-proof — Joy Ride features not only the usual racing modes but a giant freeplay sandbox for performing ridiculous stunts. The best thing about Joy Ride is that it'll be a totally free XBL Arcade download. Xbox hopes to make money on micropayments for things like new tracks and fancy paint jobs for your car, but the basic game won't cost a cent for XBL Gold OR Silver members.

Game I most wish I could play tonight: Batman: Arkham Asylum
A brutal fighting game — not visually gory, but the thudding sound of the Caped Crusader pounding his fists into bad guy's faces will stay with you — Arkham is also an imaginative stealth game and a well-acted adventure puzzler. I got to play all three modes and they blend together organically and seamlessly. Maybe not the most original game out there, but done in a very satisfying way. I got stuck on a three-tiered room full of thugs, trying to take them out one at a time without being spotted using gliding attacks from the rafters and well-placed baterangs. Never did manage to do it, but I've been thinking about new strategies ever since.

Hottest booth babes (schoolgirl fetish division): G4

Also seen above playing The Beatles: Rock Band, which brings us to...

Continue reading "And the award for most arbitrary E3 Awards goes to..." »

11:17 AM :: Comments (7)

When we last left the Clique Girlz, Ariel Moore had just left the Clique Girlz. Depending on who you asked, the non-sister member of the tween supergroup was either fed up at not getting her share of the spotlight or not talented enough to deserve her share of the spotlight. Because the Clique Girlz standards are superhigh.

Well, as of a few weeks ago, Paris and Destinee Monroe have finally cast themselves a new best friend, and hold onto your yarmulkes — she's a Jewess! A brunette Jewess. There go the PTL gigs. This picture shows Sara Diamond joining Vienna and Densitee on the set of their new movie Help! Baby Bottle Pop commercial. And while all three girls are looking appropriately lickable, shakable and dunkable (hey, I didn't write the jingle), the new one seems like trouble. Not only does she have a preposterous first name, she's already working her de-aryanization program on the Monroe sisters by infecting Desitin with her un-blond hair.

If all this sounds vaguely un-American, perhaps it's because Sara is actually from — hold onto your toques — Canada! So what else do we know about this foreign Jewess who has penetrated the beloved Cliquez? Well, she's 14, she's a model-actress (hooker-waitress?), and she has a stage mother who was pushing her into tween pop even before the Clique gig. Oh, and she got her start writing and performing militant marching songs for Hebraic Canadian cabals.

So how are Clique Girlz fans reacting to the new member? Does the word Kristallnacht ring a bell? The knives are out over at the girlz' number one fan site. Sara is wearing Ariel's dress! She's stealing her lucky charms! (Somehow we've never discussed this here, but each of the girlz has symbol that "represents them as individuals." For instance, Paree has a pink princess crown because she's "the princess," while Ariel had the purple heart, because she's "the sweetheart." And because she took some shrapnel in the ass over in Nam.)

Breaking news: Under pressure from the Clique Girlz Youth, Sara has modified her symbol. She will now sport a yellow star red heart. Because: "I love friendship and stuff."

At least the Clique Girlz marketing team is getting somewhat more sophisticated. In the past, my blog posts have been flooded with different people all making the same pre-approved comments. This time, I was alerted to the arrival of Sara by one person commenting under different names both supporting and attacking her. Maybe in time for the next cast change they'll learn about IP addresses.

After the jump, more annotated pictures.

Continue reading "In event of Rapture, Clique Girlz will now be only 2/3 missing" »

1:49 AM :: Comments (5)

Beliefnet's Joanne Brokaw, who broke the Katy Perry's secret evangelical past story last year, listens in on a conference call in which PK KP drops enough Christianese ("I have had my own relationship and my own beliefs and I'm continually on an upward search with all of that") to make clear that she hasn't made a total break with that world.

At one point Katy is asked about promoting homosexuality. This was something of a concern among conservative Christians and probably says more than anything about how disconnected much of that group is from mainstream culture. The idea that I Kissed A Girl is a "pro-gay" song is just laughable. In fact it's as about as pro-gay as Girls Gone Wild, appropriating and diminishing female sexual desire for the express purpose of pandering to juvenile straight-boy fantasies.

Which is, of course, why it's a hit. As John Tabin noted here last summer, there's a world of difference between Katy's shamelessly calculating novelty hit and Jill Sobule's far more interesting and honest song of the same name from a decade ago.

Update: Hey, fans of Andrew. If you're interested in this type of thing, check out my book, Rapture Ready!

2:18 PM :: Comments (4)

...make Insomniaccomplishments. That's the title of the new CD from Minneapolis singer-songwriter Jonathan Rundman, which I'm pleased to announce will be the prize in this week's Anti-Caption Contest.

I discovered Rundman while researching Rapture Ready!, my book on Christian pop culture, and back in April I included his beautiful 2001 song My Apology on my list of Christian rock songs that don't suck.

It's not entirely fair to include Rundman on a Christian rock list, however. As a mainline liberal he's nearly as much an outsider to American evangelicalism as I am. His scathing-but-jaunty jingle Xian Bookstore, quoted in RR!, does in 55 seconds what took me an entire chapter. Still, his faith is always a presence in his music in interesting ways. On Insomniaccomplishments he sings about the need to ask questions about God (see his charming homemade video below) and about getting into frustrating, pointless arguments with creationists. One of my favorite songs on the album, Little Bible, is almost certainly the best alt.country song ever written about the theological flaws of biblical literalism. (Samples of every track on the album can be found at CD Baby.)

But there's plenty to Rundman's raw, catchy tunesmithing that should appeal to people with no interest in such subjects at all. His recent Best-of compilation contains no overtly faith-based songs (and therefore, to my mind, is not a best-of at all, but that's another story). On the new album, check out Dialysis Carpool, I'm A Liar, Here at 2141 and Her Lip Balm for old-school indie pop that vaguely evokes the dBs, Nick Lowe, and Fountains of Wayne. For a slightly heavier groove, there's the excellent closing track, I'm Alive and Sleep Deprived. For pure folk-song prettiness, there's even a guitar instrumental from 19th century Finland.

On top of that, Jonathan is one of the friendliest, most down-to-earth people I got to know (at least a little) during my research. And judging from this video, he has a fine collection of classic Star Wars action figures.

10:45 AM :: Comments (0)

Barack Obama is defending his invitation to Rick Warren with a plea for postpartisanship.

What I've also said is that it is important for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues... That dialogue, I think, is a part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're never going to agree on every single issue. What we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.

Greg Seargant asks "why campaigning against division and polarization by picking an equally radical choice on the left to give the invocation would be politically unthinkable?"

Meanwhile, consider how agreeable Warren himself chose to be -- how open to dialogue -- after the gay group Soulforce prematurely announced that leaders of Warren's Saddleback church, perhaps including Warren and his wife Kay, had agreed to break bread with gay Christian families on Father's Day:

We did not invite this group and I will not be meeting with them. They invited themselves to draw attention to their cross country publicity stunt. My staff has already told them that neither my wife nor I will meet with them for any discussion or debate.

Bear in mind that the Soulforce families were not asking to speak from the pulpit, or for Warren to publicly embrace them. They wanted a private conversation, to let Warren get to know some real people who were being hurt by his teachings and actions. And yet, not a chance.

Soulforce was traveling, by the way, with a mediator of sorts: gay-affirming pastor Jay Bakker. If Obama is really committed to having all Americans come together, he'll have Jay up there on January 20 too.

Finally, all this stuff about Warren is drowning out the other inaugural atrocity: a new musical composition by that hack John Williams! Is that really the pinnacle of contemporary American classical music? Maybe he'll reprise the theme from Jaws in time for a great white to bite Rick Warren's legs off.

Self-promotional update: Welcome, multitudinous friends of Andrew. If this topic interests you, I think you'll enjoy my book, Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. NPR sez, "Highly recommended as a memoir, a meditation on American religious tensions, and a perfect example of why taking popular culture seriously is so important.”

5:02 PM :: Comments (8)

What do you think of when you think slutty video game nuns with chainsaws? Probably that I needed an eye-catching image for an otherwise dull post that I nevertheless really hope you'll read.

Let me explain.

Next week I'm capping (more or less) my six-month Rapture Ready! publicity blitz with two New York City appearances that promise to be the be-all and end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet. Will you be one of them?

October 16: Free lecture and reception at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

October 19: Special event at the 92nd Street Y. David Rakoff interviews A.J. Jacobs and Daniel Radosh on their experiences as strangers in a strange land.

In case you're wondering how the whole book thing has been going, I'm pleased to say that it's gotten rave reviews (with one really trivial exception), and enthusiastic blog response. And while it may seem to you that I post about the book at Radosh.net all the time, in fact, I've kept most RR! news sequestered here.

If you make it to one of the events, come say hi. It will improve your chances of winning the cartoon contest.

9:53 PM :: Comments (2)

Someone has created an Amazon wish list for Sarah Palin. Down at the bottom of the first page, under "Mom, Dad... I'm Pregnant" and the collector's edition of Red Dawn is my book, Rapture Ready! Fake Sarah's comment: "I want to be just as rapture ready as the author!"

That shouldn't be too hard.

8:55 AM :: Comments (10)

Y'know, people sometimes ask me, "Where do you get off, Radosh, holding forth on the effectiveness of campaign messaging like you're some kind of authority?"

Well, I don't like to boast about my credentials any more than John McCain likes to dredge up all that ancient history about the POW camps, but the fact is, I learned everything I need to know at age 14 by virtue of my proximity to one of the most widely-admired political media campaigns in modern history. Much the way Sarah Palin became an expert on Russia.

I'm talking, of course, about Harold Washington's history-making campaign for mayor of Chicago, the campaign that David Axelrod, Obama's chief media strategist, credits with inspiring him to get into the business (Axelrod later ran Washington's re-election campaign).

Here's a still from one of the campaign's most famous spots, which you can watch after the jump. Take away the dorky haircut and add a dorky smile. Look familiar?

Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, provides the history.

In 1983, Republican Bernard Epton faced Democrat Harold Washington in the Chicago mayoral contest. Epton was white, Washington black. Among other things, Epton's radio ads falsely accused Washington of being a "convicted felon" and of having been "disbarred." An unsigned leaflet alleged that Washington had once been arrested on a morals charge. Epton's slogan, widely criticized as "racist," was "Before It's Too Late."

Continue reading "I know more about campaign ads than probably anyone else in America" »

8:52 PM :: Comments (2)

Much hay is being made over Sarah Palin's disastrous answer to the Bush Doctrine question. Here's what most people missed. When Palin first attempts to figure out what Gibson could possibly mean by this obscure phrase, she asks if he means "his worldview."

In case you're wondering how she came up with that, it's Christianese. Sure, the word "worldview" isn't exclusively Christian. But American evangelicals use it constantly. A lot more than anyone else, except perhaps philosophy students. I heard it more during the year I spent researching my book than I had in my entire life. Christians hold worldview weekends, write worldview books, host worldview web sites, and run worldview workshops. In 2005, the creationist organization Answers in Genesis took note of the growing ubiquity of worldview-speak in Christian circles.

Rick Warren used this buzzword several times in his forum with McCain and Obama. He framed one set of questions with it this way: "Everybody’s got a world view, a Buddhist, a Baptist, a secularist, an atheist, everybody’s got a world view."

On its face, this is a benign sentiment that's hard to argue against. But in Christian circles it is almost always used to contrast a Biblical worldview with a selfish, immoral, or ignorant one. Here's Warren, speaking to a Christian audience, on six worldviews you're competing against: The one with the most toys wins, I’ve got to think of me first, Do what feels good, Whatever works for you, God doesn’t exist, You are your own God.

Hardly as neutral as he made it sound at the candidates forum. The CreationWiki entry on worldview drives the point home further.

I'm not trying to argue that Palin meant to blow a dog whistle for the religious right by using code language. If anything, she heard a whistle that no one was blowing. Unable to process "Bush Doctrine" her mind, steeped in evangelical shibboleths, translated to "worldview."

What does this tell us? Probably not much, except that she really is a true believer, and not another Rovian cynic. David Kuo suggests that Palin sold out her faith yesterday by backpedaling on whether the war in Iraq is part of God's plan. I wouldn't put it that way. More likely, she got lucky in that Gibson chose a specific question that she could answer at least somewhat honestly. OK, it's probably bullshit that she was thinking of Lincoln when she said it, but I agree with Steven Waldman that her prayer about Iraq was "a totally appropriate desire for a Christian." The lie came a few seconds later when Palin said she would "never presume to know God's will or speak God's words." Because we know she thinks God wants an Alaska pipeline, a statement Waldman flagged as "far over the line." Also, readers of this site must have gotten a good laugh when Sarah Your Heavenly Father Palin said she would never presume to speak God's words. Maybe e-mail isn't technically "speaking."

By the way, according to this Christian test, my own worldview is "socialist." Of course, the other choices are "strong biblical," "moderate biblical," "secular humanist," and "Marxist." I probably would have gotten secular humanist, except I strongly agreed that "God had no beginning and has no end." Though not for the reasons they probably had in mind.

11:57 AM :: Comments (14)

Blogger Tenacious V writes about her Ambien blackouts:

Anyway, a couple days ago I checked my e-mail at work and discovered two books had been ordered from my Amazon.com account. They were books I wanted, but I wasn't willing to dole out for the hardback versions. I didn't remember placing any order. But the time stamp on the e-mail said the night before at 1:14. Several hours after I "fell asleep" courtesy of my little chemical music box. My husband wasn't home, and unless we have some hacker who courteously buys, with my own credit card, books I want but am too tightwad to purchase, and is careful to spend just enough to earn the Super Saver Shipping, I am pretty sure my friend Ambien bought them after I asked her over to play her pretty music and make me go to sleep.

I'm not particularly sorry over it. The books were both enjoyable, especially "Rapture Ready!" by Daniel Radosh.

Ka-ching! I knew my long-shot sales strategy would pay off.

By the way, the other book? Mein Kampf.

8:35 PM :: Comments (2)

Nearly three years ago on this site, I introduced Rapture Ready! with a panel from a 1970s comic book showing pert Christian chicks being lifted into the air to meet Jesus. I've finally stumbled on the source of that image, a Spire comic based on the crackpot eschatology of Hal Lindsey. And there's this even better panel that really makes me wonder if the artists and writers weren't having a bit of a laugh.

This Flickr set has more highlights from Spire Christian comics, and you can download complete issues here, including the Lindsey title (#9) and one about Johnny Cash (#17). Sorry, the POW story is about Howard Rutledge, not anyone else.

10:51 AM :: Comments (9)

A couple of months ago in one of our conversations about Christian rock, Jim asked if Paste Magazine "used to have a Christian focus." I replied with the guess that the people who started it "were undoubtably Christian and wanted to cover the music they knew from that world, but never as a genre separate from the other music that they liked."

Today I had the pleasure of meeting one of those people, blogger Will Hinton, who was visiting New York and nicely invited me to join him for a cup of coffee (although given the awesome weather, I went with iced tea). Will is a real mensch, which was already pretty obvious from his blog, but nice to confirm. We recorded a short video interview about Rapture Ready! and cross-cultural dialogue that he'll post soon, but I wanted to suggest that you check out his site now, so it doesn't just look like I'm promoting myself (because I'd never do that).

Will is the kind of person I enjoyed meeting most during my research: a refugee from the religious right, who is thoughtful about his beliefs and respectful of other people's.

Mostly, though, I'm just posting this because I'm getting a lot of traffic from Christianity Today, and I figured I should ease first time visitors into this blog, since for the past week, I've indulged in an unusual amount of off-color language (for which I blame John McCain) and photos of naked women painted like cows (for which I blame, uh, Ben & Jerry's?).

2:12 PM :: Comments (2)

Join my new Beliefnet book club on Rapture Ready! and Christian pop culture.

Also, there's now a dedicated RSS feed for RR! news and appearances.

5:00 PM :: Comments (1)

If you're in New York City, set aside next Thursday, May 29, for Gelf Magazine's Non-motivational Lecture Series. The topic is religion, and I'll be doing a presentation along with Louis Ferrante, an ex-mafioso-turned-Orthodox Jew.

For a sneak preview, here's a Q&A I did with Gelf's Adam Rosen that delves a little more deeply than these things often do into the theological, commercial and cultural issues raised by Rapture Ready!

10:15 AM :: Comments (0)

From MSN Live Search:

In case you haven't been keeping up with the Rapture Ready! news page or Facebook group, here are some highlights from the last few weeks:

Reviews in Publisher's Weekly, SoMA Review and Discerning Reader (a conservative Christian site, so this is as close to a rave as I could possibly get).

Interviews in The Forward and Metromix.

A thoughtful discussion and analysis in Slate (that, for what it's worth, I don't entirely agree with).

Also, there are now six excerpts available online at various sites, with more to come. Pretty soon the entire thing will be free on the Internet, just like music.

Perhaps due to all this buzz, my Amazon rank briefly rose to about 850 and has now settled down to 3,000-something.

What can you do to help continue this saturation coverage, I hear you ask? Well, if you have a blog, drop a mention in whatever manner suits you best. If you want to enlist me in any such enterprise for a Q&A or guest post or whatever, let me know. If you don't have a blog, get one. Or Twitter it. I have no idea what Twitter is, but I hear it's quite fashionable.

Also, if you read the book, please take two minutes and write a review on Amazon. If you haven't read it, check out the reviews that are already there and let them know which ones were "helpful to you" (hint, the five-star ones). You can do that in less time than it took you to read this post.

You did read this far, right?

Hello? Is anybody there? There was going to be cake.

Update Thanks a million to The Millions for taking me up on the Q&A offer. Also, the buzz continues at The Onion AV Club. RR! is... tolerable!

4:24 PM :: Comments (2)

If you've arrived at this site through the Paul Edwards show, I should warn you that you might not feel entirely comfortable here. I'm cool, but some of my readers, frankly, are potty mouths. Also, I think a few of them are liberals.

In any case, what you're probably looking for is information about my book, Rapture Ready!. Trust me, go there instead. You can check out reviews, excerpts and more.

For my regular readers, I'll have a link to my conversation with Detroit pastor Paul Edwards when it's online. Update. Listen here. I come in about 3/4 of the way to the end.

6:00 PM :: Comments (8)

Over at my RR! blog today I posted about a Christian TV host who came out as gay. That led me to this hilarious video called Straight To Heaven, a musical spoof of "ex-gay ministries" (and queer culture) by a group of openly gay Christians. It's long, but the opening number alone is a pitch-perfect parody of language I heard all too often in my research.

12:58 PM :: Comments (3)

My continuing quest to become known as "that Jew who likes Christian rock" takes me today to the New York Times' Paper Cuts blog where I offer my list of 10 great Christian rock songs. Really.

Skeptics can listen to the songs here. Some will be old news to readers of this site, but there are a couple of new ones on there too. If you're at all moved to post a comment on the NYT site, please do so, since that's what keeps posts in the public eye. Sample comment topics could include your ability to be the first person to make a comment, comparisons of Christians (or Jews) to Nazis, and recommendations for web sites that offer discount pharmaceuticals.

Oh, in case you're wondering: no, I'm not allowed to say "sucks" on the Times site and, yes, I am the world's biggest hypocrite. I wanted to say "sucks," of course, in order to make the argument that Christian rock doesn't, which you'll recall was my position in a public debate a few weeks ago. If you have an hour to kill and an excessive amount of interest in the topic, you can now watch the entire debate -- well, until the tape runs out, but enough to get to the part where my opponent starts backpedalling -- on Vimeo (if anyone knows how to get around YouTube's length restriction, please tell me).

Debate: Does Christian Rock Suck? from Daniel Radosh on Vimeo.

In other RR! news Timothy Beal, the author of Roadside Religion, has a very nice review of the book on SoMA. And Radar has an excerpt from the chapter on Christian comedy. Yes, another excerpt. Pretty soon the entire book will be free on the Internets. (And of course, while you're there, click the little "recommend it" link). Radar pulled from my site this awesome clip from Prank 3:16, the Christian Punk'd, in which the jokers trick a young woman into believing she's missed the Rapture. It is horribly cruel and funny.

Also on YouTube now: the video of Bibleman vs. Jewy Jewstein, posted last week on Gawker, is ready to go viral.

Update: RR! finds its niche

12:44 PM :: Comments (8)