One of the most difficult jobs today must be public relations for Facebook. The company has faced a long string of bad news. In 2016, it was blamed for helping to elect Donald Trump, but that charge turned out to dubious. (Seriously, $325,000 of Facebook ads made all the difference?) The most recent allegations are far more serious, because they’re based on leaks of actual company documents and the testimony of a whistleblower. Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab lists some of the more important revelations. David Murray at Writing Boots, however, makes a more important point: what’s wrong with Facebook is also what’s wrong with us. And Matthew Lesh at The Critic Magazine says that we forget that the ultimate threat to freedom of speech isn’t Facebook, but the government (which may help explain why our attorney-general is catching so much flak over his school boards letter).
From a Christian perspective, it often seems that we are indeed living in the last days, and the Apocalypse is imminent. (For comparison, many the early Christians thought the same thing, living as they were in a decadent, authoritarian empire hostile to attitudes and beliefs that ran counter to those of society’s elites.) Chris Thomas at The Ploughman’s Rest reflects on the concern and says we’re not at the gates yet.
I have my journal; so do countless other writers. A journal can function like a diary, but it’s both more and less than that. I don’t write my deepest fears it it; I use it to make notes, jot ideas, record references to things I need to check later, try out a first draft of a poem or beginning of a chapter. Maria Popova at The Marginalian describes how John Steinbeck used his diary (or journal): as a tool of discipline, a hedge against self-doubt, and helping him keep the creative pace going.
More Good Reads
Poetry
By Waterloo Station – Paul Freeman at Society of Classical Poets.
When I Was a Boy – Pennar Davies at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).
Chasing the Man-Moth – William Logan at New Criterion.
Life and Culture
End of Part 1 and Intermission: The Machine Stops? – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.
How My Evangelical Childhood Prepared Me for the Great Awakening -- Samuel James at Insights.
The Tory Interpretation of History – Michel Connolly at The Imaginative Conservative.
The Brevity and the Beauty – Chris Martin at Terms of Service.
This Valetudinarian World – Ken Colombini at Front Porch Republic.
Faith
Live Like You’ll Live Forever – Greg Morse at Desiring God.
Friendship: The Foundation of Paul’s Global Ministry – Caleb Greggsen at 9 Marks.
Writing and Literature
Discover the other Elizbeth Taylor – Malcolm Forbes at The Critic Magazine.
Is Amazon Changing the Novel? – Parul Seghal at The New Yorker.
Shop Talk: Michael Koryta Writes 1500 Words and Gets to Ring the Bell – Eli Cranor at CrimeReads.
Cormac McCarthy, Cultural Memory, and the Mythopoesis of Fire – Jessica Hooten Wilson at Church Life Journal.
Why is Baseball the Most Literary of Sports? – Lincoln Michel at Literary Hub.
On reading – Tim Suffield at Nuakh.
Scars in Heaven – Casting Crowns
Painting: The Reader, oil on canvas (1888) by George Croegaert (1848-1923).
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