By: gfesadmin on November 15, 2012
There was devotion and dedication. There was love and passion. There was craving and yearning. We could see it in the faces of our neighbors and friends. A surprise at first, but after some time, we too began to experience the same sensations! And it happened each night. Six nights a week! It was our…
By: gfesadmin on November 15, 2012
Recently, I watched the new James Bond movie “Skyfall.” One specific scene (please see attached video clip) reminded me of the book my cohort and I are reading for our doctoral program; and particularly chapter 8 “In and Out of Cyberspace.” The book is called A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the…
By: gfesadmin on November 15, 2012
It was like Christmas morning. Out of nowhere my parents decided to surprise my brother, sister and I on a whim. For six months we had been asking, not really, more like begging our parents to buy us an Atari 2600. As a ten year old in 1982, I thought it was the coolest game…
By: gfesadmin on November 10, 2012
The first four chapters of the Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet proved to be an interesting and fascinating read. I was drawn to the writings on the Media and the Public Sphere in Early Europe. I was struck by the many parallels between the role of the media during the…
By: gfesadmin on November 9, 2012
I have a love-hate relationship with books. Early in my career as a pastor, I collected books of many kinds. Books are the tools of the trade for pastors which include Biblical commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, Greek and Hebrew language tools, sermon illustrations etc. As I grew in my trade I added books on history, biographies,…
By: gfesadmin on November 9, 2012
Within the last 24 hours, several dozen teenagers have expressed to me their feelings about the recent presidential election. While some came across angry and disappointed, others were excited and hopeful, and still others could care less either way. Maybe one of the most striking similarities in each group was that the majority of the…
By: gfesadmin on November 9, 2012
“Kissing a painting or a statue was a common way of expressing devotion…” states Briggs and Burke in A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. (p. 7) Visual and tactile are the icons and statues of Christianity. There are no words needed when an illiterate individual experiences the emotions of beloved…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
A Social History of the Media by Briggs and Burk is a detailed historical account of the many changes in communication media. It provides an account of modern forms of communication covering its massive sweeps and every significant wave of change from the print revolution to the Internet. The chapter on Media history may be…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
When studying the scriptures, one learns as an important step to evaluate the development of the bible, the different traditions, that collected the numerous parts of the bible to the extent and canon that we oversee today. Before entering the analysis of the written text, scholars always research old oral traditions, the underlying spoken histories…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
Who is John Galt? This saying permeates Ayn Rand’s novel called Atlas Shrugged. I became aware of this book recently at a pastors luncheon. One pastor said it was prophetic about the U.S. He bemoaned that the “prophecy” in the book was coming true in America. The book was written in 1957 and is seeing something of…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
“Who communicated what to whom — and how” in Harold Lasswell’s words, “and to what effect?” (A. B. Burke n.d.) is the seminal question that must be asked in order to fully understand any major event or shift in history. To that I would add, “when?. Timing is also critical in most instances. In other…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
I woke up this morning at 3:45 a.m. and knew that I would not fall back to sleep. This is not uncommon for me. Many have the same experience after passing age 60, I am 63. The upside is that I am awake when the house is very quiet and I can read and write…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
This weeks reading assignment was A Social History of The Media by Asa Briggs and Peter Burk. A major theme woven through the book connects media, control and influence. I think media’s purpose is to convey a message, therefore whoever controls the media controls the message. Briggs and Burke write that Queen Elizabeth “Spoke of…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
To Print or Not to Print As printing presses began churning out books and material during the Reformation, the Catholic Church was in a quandary, according to Briggs and Burke in A Social History of the Media. The conversation might have gone something like the following. “That pest Luther is turning the heads of our…
By: gfesadmin on November 8, 2012
This past January the family and I took in a day at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.. It was a dream come true for me as a father. For years now I have been telling Grace and Eli about all the amazing aircraft that are stored and preserved at the Smithsonian. …
By: gfesadmin on October 27, 2012
“Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 Most of us agree that there is a dearth of good leadership. And in an ever-changing global world, peoples’ social, intellectual, spiritual and emotional needs and responses are becoming increasingly complex,…
By: gfesadmin on October 27, 2012
In my leadership career, I have seen three new Executive Directors of Continuing Care Retirement Communities fail to win the right to lead and after six months to a year, they resigned, were terminated or decided to retired. I have seen two new Executive Directors almost lose their right to lead but they decided to…
By: gfesadmin on October 26, 2012
Nohria’s chapter on Identity-Based Leaders Development was to say the least, a thought provoking read. For one thing, it continually forced me to slow down and digest bits of poignant thought all along the way. However, another reason this chapter gripped me is because up to this point, we have discussed such topics as Society…
By: gfesadmin on October 26, 2012
While finishing dinner yesterday evening, our teenager began dialoguing with my wife and me about some new changes taking place at his high school. Test creators and state representatives have devised a plan that will change the school’s class schedule, tell teachers how to teach, shorten school days, and amp up state driven tests, all…
By: gfesadmin on October 26, 2012
As I listened to a variety of leaders speak at a conference this week I was inspired by a few ideas that will hopefully prove productive in your own leadership contexts. First I want to look at a couple of quotes from our text, Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh…
