A banjo maker in the mountains,
when looking out for wood to carve
an instrument, will walk among
the trees and knock on trunks. He’ll hit
the bark and listen for a note.
A hickory makes the brightest sound;
the poplar has a mellow ease.
But only straightest grain will keep
the purity of tone, the sought-
for depth that makes the licks sparkle.
A banjo has a shining shiver.
Its twangs will glitter like the light
on splashing water, even though
its face is just a drum of hide
of cow, or cat, or even skunk.
The hide will magnify the note,
the sad of honest pain, the chill
blood-song, lament, confession, haunt,
as tree will sing again from root
and vein and sap and twig in wind
and cat will moan as hand plucks nerve,
picks bone and skin and gut and pricks
the heart as blood will answer blood
and love begins to knock along the grain.
John Piper recently began twittering under his own name, and he wrote an accompanying post on the desiringGod blog laying out his reasoning for entering the “twittersphere,” which I found insightful and a good read. My favorite part is quoted below:
Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”
To which I respond:
The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.
The song comes from Fitzsimmons’ latest record, The Sparrow and The Crow, which is excellent. I like the video, too. If you like what you hear, consider picking up the cd or buying it online from Amazon or on iTunes.
Twitter fills an interesting niche in the world of online social networking. On Twitter, individuals micro-blog in 140 character bursts, and their readers only follow the people they choose to in their own customized “feed”.
Given how easy it is to post a message on Twitter and have it be broadcast almost instantly to one’s followers, Twitter becomes a medium of content delivery that is both faster than e-mail and wider reaching than an instant message conversation. Numerous people have taken advantage of the power of Twitter; Barack Obama announced his running-mate over Twitter, for one, and thousands of people followed and identified with the daily goings-on of the Mars Phoenix Rover via an employee at JPL posting on its behalf. Twitter has been used to humanize large corporations, give a heads-up to deal-seekers, and reiterate a company’s commitment to being interactive with its users. Even news organizations have taken to twitter, from new start-ups to well established members of traditional media.
This way Twitter is being used in this last instance is both promising and potentially scary. Here’s why.
It’s wonderful to receive news as it happens. Twitter allows for news to be relayed faster than traditional media outlets are able to report. For example, a few weeks ago I heard about a plane crash on Twitter five to ten minutes before it hit the news. Twitter allow the “person on the ground” to be heard by those around the world in record time.
This is a great, great tool for citizen journalism. The problems manifest when you tradeoff speed for reliability. It’s easy for rumors and misinformation to be spread around the internet, anyway, and by providing the means for anyone to become a reporter, the standards of journalism and reporting that traditional news outlets are held to are not enforced. The pressure to “get it out first” sure doesn’t help, either.
Last week, I received an Amber Alert via Twitter. While Twitter is a good medium to transmit Amber Alerts, this one turned out to be a hoax. Just yesterday, my friend Mark made this tweet:
trappermark Twitter news conflict: @cnnbrk telling me 9 dead in Turkish Air crash. At same time, @nytimes says just 20 hurt.
So not all reporting can be trusted, that’s a given. As long as people fact-check and confirm the things they hear, there’s no problem with being presented with conflicting information. Unfortunately, my experience tells me that most people do take what they hear at face value. Maybe regular users of the internet are different, I don’t know. Being able to quickly sort out fact from fiction is essential to using the web effectively as a research tool. As the web extends deeper into every facet of our daily lives, this skill becomes more and more important in shaping how we see the world around us.
I say, bring on the citizen journalism. Let’s just make sure we do it (and read it) responsibly.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. (John 15:16, ESV)
June 22, 2009 
Posted in Art, Reading 
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