Daily Archives: April 13, 2007

Blogosphere, SLAPP

The Real-Time Consequences of the JL Kirk Associates kirking

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The story is now famous. A blogger pens a negative review of a job placement agency (J.L. Kirk and Associates). The agency responds with a mean-spirited comment and then threatens legal action. A national media outlet picks up the story, and now “to kirk” has a new meaning. In particular, “kirking” means to damage one’s own reputation by the incompetent use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPS).

One way to measure this is to look at the first three pages of google results for the phrase j.l. kirk. This is the term a potential client or business partner of JL Kirk Associates would most likely use to find out information about the company. As of now, these are the first three pages worth of google results for that term:

(The hyperlinked entries go to negative reviews of the company for its attempted use of the law-courts to silence a critic.)

If the kirking becomes complete, and all but the J.L. Kirk & Associates homepage drops off the first three pages of google links, then (as things stand now) the following 9 pages must move up:

And to round out the top 11, let’s remember Jim River Report‘s first announcement, and the tdaxp SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) category, which also contain information on lawfarite thugs such as Active Holdings, Jim Abourezk, and NationMaster.

And we need one more, so why not the fark summary?

Faith

Icons

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Phoicon has joined the team over at Amendment Nine, and his second post takes a shot at this humble blog:

Dan, the author of the blog TDAXP, was a favorite of Federalist X’s. I have no idea why. I’ve visited Dan’s blog often. The vast majority of what he has to say is completely incomprehensible, though there is a good deal of the Catholic guilt thrown in so it isn’t all incomprehensible to me I suppose.

and, more interestingly, at my Easter message


Not religiously correct?

Phoicon’s critique is direct, and well thought out:

The drawing is in fact a mockery of Christ. It is laughing in the face of the resurrection. The artist undoubtedly was amused, like most easterners so cynically are, at the notion that the dead were raised. The Buddha-like hand gestures again show disdain for Christianity and certainly for the Orthodox faith. The whole thing is an abomination. One must wonder whether Dan posted the picture as an insult to Christians intentionally or just naively?

Phicon seems to prefer a more Greek form of iconography:


Icon of The Risen Christ

Writing:

Here is no faceless godhead, but a man. A strong man victoriously lifting the dead from their tombs. He has conqured death and is unblemished. Everyone is beneath him as he lefts the dead from their eternal slumber. This is Jesus, son of Man, winning the fight.

Again, Phoicon chose is thoughts well. He is correct in his condemnation of the Byzantine artwork. But, I think, wrong in his negative criticism…


The reason I chose to go with a work by He Qi was his stunningly beautiful painting of Saint Paul being called on the road to Damascus. The portrait is striking,


The Calling of Saint Paul

More unrealistic even that European renditions


The Conversion of Saint Paul

He Qi captures the moment in a foreign, stylized manner. He gives us not a photograph of what happened (in the manner that the Passion of the Christ gives a photographic account of the crucifixion) but something to remember it by.

And this, something to remember by, is what we mean by “icon.” The cross and crucifixes, the depictions of Mary and the Saints, that the iconoclasts smashed where not powers and principalities apart from God, but rather tools to help us remember the life and death of Our Lord, the Queen of the Angels, and all those who follow him. Likewise, the family is an icon of the Holy Trinity, as the love that connects each person in the family reminds us of the Perfect Love connecting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as three persons, in one God.

Which brings us back to the icon that so enraged Phoicon


Faux Iconography?

Whether this art is an icon or not pivots on one point: does it help you remember the Resurrection of Our Lord. If yes, then it is an icon. If not, then it is not.

This is true whether or not it embraces & extends Buddhism to its logical completion (indeed, the logical completion of all things): Love.

Hear also: The episode Iconoclasm: What’s that?, from Rock Solid with Mark Shea, a podcast by Catholic Exchange.