The last of the comic books (for a while)

Technorati is getting worse, not better. It hasn't worked right for weeks. These days at least nineteen times out of twenty, when I try a Technorati search, I get the "servers busy" message.

Technorati was already slow and unreliable when I first started using it. I assumed the problems would be short-lived. But the situation has grown steadliy worse. I've tried in vain for several weeks to find out if they are even aware of their own meltdown or if they have a timetable for correcting it, but I have finally given up.

Click here, for example, to see a humorous example of Technorati's ostrich-head-in-the-sand policy. (I've linked to the Google cache page, because odds are, Technorati won't be working if you try to do an actual live search.) Apparently, there's no plan to make Technorati a viable commercial search engine, so I have removed the Technorati link from my blog template.

That's why today's BlogSpotting is brought to you courtesy of IceRocket.

Oddly enough, the main topic of discussion (as it has been since Thursday morning) is a single, throwaway-gag blogpost that, ironically, comprised fewer words than any other post in the history of PyroManiac. Here's what you'll find on other blogs that link here:

• Jeremy Writebol at "the Fellowship of Nicea" adds some informative links at the end of an interesting post about Wycliffe and Tyndale. Then he humorously tacks on a link to the Great Comic-Book Scandal of 2005.
  
• Kevin Johnson, who made a great show of his withdrawal from polemic blogging a few weeks ago, came out of retirement to join the dogpile on PyroManiac—just when it seemed the Scandal was beginning to wind down. The title of his post says it all. With profound "shock" and "sadness," he decries certain unspecified "hot-headed discussions" associated with the comic-book parody that have provoked him to seek comfort in the truth of divine sovereignty. (I'm not sure what Johnson was reading. Although the parody provoked a long and lively disagreement in the comments thread, I don't recall anything like "hot-headedness" from either side of the debate here.) Anyway, by the emotional shrillness of Johnson's concern for "the reaction of shock and horror by those who happen upon such ugliness"—he manages to make my comic-book parody sound like an atrocity that rivals Katrina for the amount of sheer devastation and ruined lives my artwork left in its wake.
       No, scratch that. Johnson actually pours out more emotion caviling at the savagery of the mock comic-book cover than he has so far expressed on his blog about Katrina.
  
• Dan Paden is clearly no fan of the Tavern, but he nonetheless tries to be even-handed in his assessment of whether the comic book parody was a good idea or a bad one. He concludes (correctly, in my judgment) that it was an exercise in futility. Some of his commenters spend a great deal of time trying to quantify just how a big waste of time it all was. (Hey, I was on vacation, remember? I'm entitled to waste a little time.)
  
• Julana Schutt is gracious, but she wants it known that she was offended by the image of a man striking a woman.
       For the record (again), I too am offended by men who actually strike women. I also wish to remind folks that the guy in that picture was not the hero of the point I was making. Nor was I suggesting that the patrons of the Tavern are in any sense prone to actual real-world violence of that sort. They may act like hoodlums at times, but I wasn't really accusing them of violent misogyny. I hope by now everyone is clear on that.
       In the halcyon days before post-modernism made every word, image, and definition subject to an infinite number of interpretations, simple satire did not require such careful qualifications. I fear humor itself may already be an endangered species, because when you start having to explain every joke, none of them will be truly funny. No kind of humor survives such an autopsy.
  
• A case in point: "Bene Diction" is absolutely certain the parody comic book was not intended as humor at all, but was actually "meant to harm someone." (Of course, that doesn't keep him from reproducing it at his blog.) His commenters have a heyday expressing their outrage at the distastefulness of it all. I come away feeling most of them would not embrace and affirm me in my faith journey.
  
• Patrick Ramsey has some thoughts about what is on tap over at the neighborhood drinking establishment.
  
• Paulus Maximus liked the initial comic-book covers. But he weighed in before the full fury of the controversy was unleashed.
  
• The Internet Monk tells his side of the story.
  
• I can't wait to see this one. Not sure why the links aren't working yet. I guess the articles have yet to be written.
  
• One Salient Oversight is surprised to find himself on my blogroll. His blog is nearly always good reading. Several times he has been the first one I've seen post links to informative material, like the PayPal/somethingawful.com dispute. Although we might not be in complete agreement about everything, I really like the freshness of his Aussie perspective on things. His "list of interesting Wikipedia articles," along with a couple of his theological articles, originally earned him a place in my "interesting" category. Since that category is filled with blogs whose main focus is biblical and theological, I recently moved him to "entertaining." But he's actually both interesting and entertaining.
  
• Searched1 found James Spurgeon's material through the link I posted here, and it seems the two of them have something in common.
  
• Scott, one of "The Fat Triplets" also liked James's "Tales."
  
• Donnie at "Parable of the Blog-Net" found my material on Darwin Fish and thinks it would be good material for a Monday post.

That's all I have time for. Enjoy Labor Day. I'm trying to think of a subject for Monday that doesn't require a lot of work to write.

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