. . . this article resonates very strongly with me:

This is not an angry letter. It is especially not an angry letter about Up, which I adored. I could have sat in the theater and watched it two more times in a row. I cried, but I also laughed so hard in places that it wore me out.

So I’m not complaining; I’m asking. I’m asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.

. . .

Of the ten movies you’ve released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees — The Incredibles, in particular — but the story is never “a girl and the things that happen to her,” the way it’s “a boy and what happens to him.”

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Princess And The Frog. Not a girl who’s a side dish, but a girl who’s the big draw.

And I’d really, really like it not to be a princess.

I think Pixar has a lot of great female characters in their movies, particularly Jessie from Toy Story 2 and 3 and Ellie from UP, but it would be nice to see a movie from a female perspective.

Something I struggle with in books and movies and storytelling in general — rarely is there an interesting female lead role that doesn’t involve domestic abuse or princesses. Frustrating.

So y’all know that the White House has a Flickr stream, and posts really rad photos to it, like, every single day?

I love this so much it borders on the ridiculous. Here are a few of my faves:

Wow, almost two months since I posted here. Seems that Facebook has taken up the brainspace that I used to spend on blogging.

Anyway. Here are some thoughts that have been rattling around my brain lately for your perusal:

1. It bugs the living crap out of me that Sonia Sotomayor is being called a racist for expressing pride in her ethnic heritage. The speech in question with the infamous “wise latina judge” remark is a powerful statement of the need for and immense value in diversity in the justice system. I suggest that if you haven’t read and really thought about the whole speech and are making judgments about her based on the totally lame Republican “racist” talking point, you should really just shut up.

2. In about three weeks, a new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association will be selected by the delegates of this year’s General Assembly, of which I am one. The two candidates, Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman from Dallas and Rev. Peter Morales from Colorado, are both very interesting and have good ideas for the future of our Association.

Their respective followers, however, are also bugging the living crap out of me.

Yes, I’ve chosen a candidate. No, I won’t tell you who it is, because I don’t care to hear from the “persuasion posse” currently making the rounds of the UU blogs. The only thing that could change my mind at this point is some kind of horrific scandal involving human sacrifice.

3. Pandora is really wonderful and has been making my working life much more pleasant than it was previously, because I don’t have to hear the same very small collection of things that iTunes’ “Genius” feature can manage to choose from my literally thousands of tracks, over and over. I’ve discovered about eight new artists that I will be purchasing full albums from in the near future.

And this application, PandoraBoy, makes it even better, since I don’t have to keep my browser open and can use my remote to pause and play and control the volume.

4. Summer vacation when the kids and the husband are suddenly home all the time doesn’t change the fact that I still have paying work to do. . .

From the Iowa Senate Leader, upon being asked to co-sponsor an amendment to the state constitution to outlaw now-legal same-gender marriages:

Transcript:

One of my daughters was in the workplace one day, and her particular workplace at that moment in time, there were a whole bunch of conservative, older men. And those guys were talking about gay marriage. They were talking about discussions going on across the country.

Any my daughter Kate, after listening for about 20 minutes, said to them, “You guys don’t understand. You’ve already lost. My generation doesn’t care.”

I think I learned something from my daughter that day, when she said that. And I’ve talked with other people about it and that’s what I see, Senator McKinley. I see a bunch of people that merely want to profess their love for each other, and want state law to recognize that.

Is that so wrong? I don’t think that’s so wrong. As a matter of fact, last Friday night, I hugged my wife. You know I’ve been married for 37 years. I hugged my wife. I felt like our love was just a little more meaningful last Friday night because thousands of other Iowa citizens could hug each other and have the state recognize their love for each other.

No, Senator McKinley, I will not co-sponsor a leadership bill with you.

A lovely review in the local paper for the show:

One of the more notable singers is Jess Cullinan as Mother Abbess. Her performance of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” is really impressive. All the young actors who make up the Von Trapp children (Natasha Roberts, Matthew Connor Davenport, Monica Poston, Jonah Johnson, Emily Hopkins, Nora Cullinan and Lillian Petersen) are terrific. It’s hard to believe Maria had to teach them anything about singing.

The nuns at the abbey (Wendy Swanson, Carolyn Connor and Gwen Wiens) also prove they know a thing or two about music. Their rendition of “Maria,” is one of the best songs in the show.

Elisa Enriquez portrays a very sunny, happy-go-lucky Maria with a sparkling voice while John Cullinan’s perforamnce as Max showcases not only a great voice but also a skilled comedian.

Last night we had our pick-up rehearsal, where we got to goof off through the whole show, featuring the Holy Goose (goose puppet that we wrapped in my ceremonial cape before the wedding), a gospel version of “Climb Every Mountain” with backup vocals by Maria, and a kazoo chorus for the wedding processional. It was hilarious and wonderful fun.

Two performances left — Friday and Saturday — and then we put this thing to bed.

Check it out — my daughter is a star of many different qualities. Not only does she sing and dance, but she builds stuff, too.

Lego Robotics Club Video

These are the three words/phrases that I say the most in my role as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, put on by the Los Alamos Light Opera and opening tonight!! The other thing I say the most is, of course, “Climb Every Mountain.” I’m pretty surprised that I haven’t burst into flames wearing the nun suit, being the “heretic” that I am. . .

The whole family is in on the action — Nora plays Marta VonTrapp, who will be seven on Tuesday and would like a pink parasol, John plays Max Detweiler, manipulator and comic relief who sings two very fun songs not in the movie version, and Brandon is a “swing kid,” understudy for Kurt VonTrapp and winner of the 3rd prize in the Kaltzburg Festival with the other three swings.

We’re all pretty exhausted, and relieved to get to the performances at long last, since we’ve been working on the show for four months. It’s a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too.

Before anything can be said about what a website should look like, it’s important to talk about the structure of information, or the site’s architecture. After all, what’s the use of slick graphics if you can’t find the information you need?

Where I usually start this conversation is with a discussion of the site’s audience. Usually an organization is broken down into three categories: staff, the people who belong to or are served by the organization who are not staff, and people new to the organization. To go back to my current project, redesigning my congregation’s site, those categories are staff, members, and visitors.

Now, obviously there is some overlap of information in those three groups, stuff everyone looks for, and there are breakdowns within those categories as well: in the membership column, you have leaders who chair committees or serve on the board, on staff, you have ministry and administration, and so on depending on your organization’s structure.

When you’re doing a redesign, most of the information you need is already in place, but may need some reorganization. For my congregation, everything, and I mean everything, is linked on the front page without much focus on who is going to be looking for it. So, we’re simplifying our categories of information to allow people coming to the site for different purposes to go right for what they need, but also to allow for exploration of what our church is about.

Here’s what we have come up with so far, definitely a work in progress:

Front Page: Welcome statement, contact information, service times and current week’s service and Forum descriptions, any large special event coming up, link to current newsletter, search bar. Navigation is as follows:

• For Visitors
  • Interest form that emails to Membership committee
  • Sunday Services: directions, Sunday schedule, order of service
  • Religious Education overview, links
  • Public Events/News
  • About Unitarian Universalism
• About our Church: Mission and Vision, Directions
  • Governance and Leaders
    • Constitution
    • Church documents: Long Range Plan, Annual Report, Board and Council Minutes (current year only)
    • Financial documents (password)
  • Newsletters
  • History of our congregation
  • Online directory (password)
  • Rentals
• Sunday Services: overview, order of service, past sermons and podcasts (link to Forum in the text)
  • Touchstones: Water Communion, Christmas Eve, Easter, Flower Communion, new members ceremony, child dedications
  • Worship Associates
• Staff: Listing with pictures, contact, and office hours, link to individual pages
  • Minister: Bio, contact, office hours, link to Sunday Services, podcast, sermons, blog
  • Director of Religious Education: Bio, contact, office hours, Blog
  • Music Director: Bio, contact, office hours, rehearsals
  • Youth Ministry Coordinator: Bio, contact, office hours, Blog
  • Office Administrator: Bio, contact, office hours
• Religious Education: Overview, information about visiting
  • K-5 programs with curricula and schedules
  • Youth Groups: YRUU and Uniteens, with schedules/announcements
  • Adult RE classes
• Programs: Overview and list
  • Small group ministry
  • Social Justice
  • Music: Choirs, volunteer opportunities
  • Sunday Forum: overview, schedule, list of past speakers
  • Knife and Fork
  • Art in the Church: artist bio, photos, purchasing information
  • Book Group
  • Affinity groups: overview and list
    • Philosophy Group
    • Men’s Group
    • Ladies’ lunch
• Events: This week at church, links to calendar

We took the kids to see Coraline tonight, and it was absolutely fantastic. I only wish our rinky dink movie theatre had run the 3D version, but oh well.

When we got home, I went looking for more information about how the movie was made. I expected to find lots of stuff about CGI and interesting technology effects, and instead found that every item in the movie was hand made.

Holy crap.

Check this out to see why my mind is really blown:

This movie is true art, on every level. Wow.

Something else to consider in the process of creating a website, particularly when there are volunteers involved as in most churches or non-profits, is the capability of the people in charge to make informed decisions about technology.

What you most want to avoid, unfortunately also the most common scenario, is finding yourself held practically hostage by whatever “experts” you may have found when first starting out. When you are so dependent upon the specialized knowledge of one individual, who may or may not know what they are talking about, and then that individual abandons you for whatever reason, you’re screwed.

I’ve run into this scenario in many places — as a volunteer, an employee, and a paid contractor. An organization was excited about putting together a website, hired themselves a designer, often a beginner or rank volunteer (cheaper than a pro!), but didn’t have the knowledge to check out that designer’s qualifications. The designer finds themselves in over their head, does what s/he can, passes it off as completed work and then disappears. Then the organization is stuck hiring someone like me to clean up the mess — but with no real assurance that they won’t find themselves in the same situation again.

There is nothing more frustrating to me, professionally and personally, than finding evidence that a worthy organization was screwed over, royally, by a simple lack of knowledge, both by the leadership and the person they chose to hire. It’s even worse when the person who volunteered or was hired is passing themselves off as a professional, without any qualifications to back them up.

What’s the alternative, especially for organizations without much budget? An alternative other than hoping against hope that you can find a volunteer or contractor who can do what they say they can do, and will be reliable enough not to disappear?

I’d love to say there’s an easy answer, but there really isn’t. If the leadership of an organization is not technology-savvy enough to be able to adequately supervise those people who volunteer or are hired to build and or manage the website, the organization is vulnerable. Period.

About the only thing you can do is to make sure you’re not just going with the person who happens to be in front of you when you need someone, to always, always examine references and portfolio pieces as thoroughly as possible, to ask lots of questions and check the answers with other professionals, and to budget as much money as you can towards getting the job done right. And, if you do find yourself abandoned and stranded, expect to have to pay a pretty penny to get it fixed, or to have to start over.