 
**Know Each Other:  
The Pacific Daily Times and Information Age**

Jesse Steele

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**Copyright © 2015 Jesse Steele**

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**For Gary deBock, Michael Perry,**

**And Enoch Olson whom they succeeded**
**Table of Contents**

For Gary deBock, Michael Perry, and Enoch whom they succeeded

Introduction

The "Know Each Other" Sector

Editing: A Broad Skill Set

Future of Media and How News Gets Delivered

Advertising and Subscription News **  
**Networks: SEO, Phone Books& Markets

Social Marketing

Freebook vs Freemium

Technology and Renaissance

Helping Contributors

New Digital Style Guides

Ink by the Barrel

Eras within History

Five Millennial Movement Trends

Emergent Church

The Off-Center Zodiac

The Premillennial Era

In the Generation Jesus Returns

Kooks and Conspiracies

Premillennial Era: The Pacific Worldview

True Conservatism and Political Marketing

The 'Make Money' Movement

Establishment Meltdown

The Myth of 'Non-Biased' Journalism

Scripts

Political Correctness, Stereotypes, and Prejudice

Faux News

Victim Culture

Adventures

History of the Pacific Daily Times

About the Author
**Introduction**

Things change at every stage of history, but the trend is for them to change faster and faster. If the trend continues, we'll see as much change as has happened over the last two centuries happen within a single decade, then even more change in the decade that follows. When that era comes, it might be best called the "Era of Eras" or the "Age of Ages"—not superlative, but plural. That wouldn't happen until after Christ reigns on the Earth.

One of the greatest barriers prior to the 21st century was the Pacific Ocean. Before we enjoyed Internet and translation helps, people depended on ships, airlines, a much more limited mass media, and professional translators to bridge the Pacific void. Digital media and mobile technology are bringing people together. The Pacific left a watermark and there is much catching-up to do.

Old tools don't fade quietly, but they still fade or "nichify"; some even pass away. Those who change with the times thrive. Change is easier for those who can see the future before it becomes history—and they along with it.

I may refer to Pacific Daily Times as "the Times". This is more of a habit than anything else. But, so as not to confuse you, I'll always use a capital "T" when I do.

The topic of news itself brings up many secondary topics. This book tries to touch on the areas that relate to and stem from digital media. I made the chapters small for this reason. If you don't enjoy a chapter, it's okay to skip it. The book is not tightly sequential, but does read somewhat like a progressing set of opinion columns. Some concepts do build chapter to chapter, such as "Premillennial Era", but not too much. I even find some of the chapters boring, but they are necessary in order to serve the purpose behind the book.

Of course, if you want to write a review about this book, you will need to read the whole book first. That's part of good reporting. Many problems in our world come from people critiquing each other, but who don't know each other. Ironically, Judging without listening is a big problem across the world, but particularly in America. Of all, Christians are best at this, even with all the Bible passages that teach against gossip. One can easily see why I named this book just as I did.

It is difficult to discuss the changing and passing of the times without problems from the old guard surfacing now and again. By definition, Establishments always struggle to change with the times. So, this book uses the term "Establishment" more than once. This creates a problem because of the need for consistent definitions.

What does the term "Establishment" mean, anyway? I capitalize it when used this way, just for clarity. Still, someone will probably object, most likely from the old guard. Institutions create subcultures and ruts that are difficult to escape, especially for old dogs who have no interest in learning, even to save their own bones. That's the Establishment.

So, to those who cynically say, "I just don't know what you're referring to," I answer, "Oh, yes you do. That's why you object."

Establishments lack foresight and gratitude. An Establishment sees itself as entitled rather than indebted to its base—whether an audience, readers, subscribers, members, customers, fans, donors, voters, or other supporters. From their attitude of entitlement, they think their base is indebted to them. This is why many pastors and politicians have trouble listening.

After all, does "god" take advice from mere mortals? The God with a capital "G" does.

By contrast, even Jesus rules not because he is "entitled", but because he is "worthy"; he is the Lamb who was slain. Never despise Jesus for the sins of any Establishment, even an Establishment that plagiarizes his name. That would misreport the facts.

Jesus is anything but "Establishment". I created the Times to be a news source and info hub that was worthy of him. This is no small chore, which is partially why I named it after the world's largest ocean—partially.

The feeling of entitlement and pride blinds Establishment leaders. It makes them weak and puts them in danger. They are like ships at sea that give orders to lighthouses and are insulted by buoys. In the same turn, they fear all the people they shouldn't and can't stand up for the things that they need in order to survive.

The mismatched priorities of Establishments are too often seen as a nuisance when we should see the weakness for what it is—Establishments are neither as powerful nor as popular as they are in their own eyes. Neither fear nor spite nor argue nor fight any Establishment. Stay sharp, keep informed, do what's right in your own sphere, and put your neighborhood's Establishment out of business.

Don't complain. Just get busy. And always take the time to know each other.

Singapore is a fabulous example of the wealth and happiness that can be created by an anti-Establishment. While much more could be said of the small country than can go into a large book, its government says it all. Spitting on streets is illegal and they beat criminals with sticks. Singapore is a small, yet independent and sovereign, nation with its own standing military. They are anything but politically correct. Since the beginning, Singapore's people have elected the same family to lead the country, like a king who is re-crowned term after term. The day that family feels entitled, Singapore will become history.
**The "Know Each Other" Sector**

When I was very young, my grandmother would always tell me, "Jesse, talk to old people. They have wisdom." The term "old people" is not something I would use today, but that was the word my grandmother knew a young child would understand. She told me to learn from them, so I did.

Our seniors carry living history. Black Ebonics uses the term "Original Gangsta'" (OG). They were there in the day. The struggles of their youth shaped the struggles we have in ours, for better and worse. Whenever I come across an OG, I learn as much as I can. This is why I have many of the perspectives, opinions, and well-trained, unusual biases that I do. I enjoyed seeking people out just so I could listen to them. It wasn't until many years later, shortly after I stared the Times, that I realized this is the basic work of journalism: to know each other. Unknowingly, I have done the work of journalism all my life. My grandmother taught me to.

In college, when I took a required class called "Introduction to Mass Communications", I first thought it was off-topic. Our department head led the class, most of which was discussion. We had a thick book that addressed a wide array of subjects. Much of it was about how to know each other. I didn't realize it at the time, but the class was right on topic.

I've also come to realize that it is not just mass-communications—many fields of expertise relate to the same thing, including marketing, PR, press office, mass comm companies, staff meetings, advertising, and even an open door policy at an organization... These different fields are a topic of ongoing mystery to many experts because these fields are not viewed as being one-in-the-same. So much that we do, we do simply to know each other.

Raising general awareness helps people know each other. In the corporate world of administration, people will always say, "talk to the right person." But not even the man at the top can't make the right decision for the company unless people throughout the company know that decision is a good idea.

Many problems don't arise from lack of talking to the decision maker, but lack of collective understanding. Even bad leaders are able to rise to power in the first place because of general unawareness about those leaders' capabilities and which abilities they need. Knowing each other helps teams grow stronger. Healthy teams are better equipped to stop problems before they get out of control. This is another reason why it can be a good idea to allow employees to discuss ideas in the absence of management, even while on the clock.

It's interesting that business leaders are starting to advise companies to remove managers,  view a thorough article and quotes from Peter Drucker, here where business managers seemed to emerge alongside the same pages of history as Communism. Dust on the horizon—especially with digital age, individual craftsmen, and freelancers—indicates a foreseeable trend to eliminate managers.

While we're on the topic, as an editor linking to external articles, I feel compelled to add that the double hyphen -- rather than the em dash — may be used on many blogs, but we prefer the em dash — it at the Times. Confusing them is a mistake of novice writers. I was surprised to see it in Krauthammer's columns.

My father might add that we are often surprised at things that indicate that we shouldn't be surprised at the things that surprise us. Or he might just say that we shouldn't be surprised as often as we are. To which I would add: if we know each other.

Whether in organizing people or proselytizing the evangel of em dash—raising awareness throughout an organization or industry causes discussion. This leads to brainstorming and creativity. Ideas become better. Then, leaders have a lens to see which issues are important in their statistic research and feedback reports. We have better ideas because of "open-source" idea development. Consumers will want to use a product or service if they understand how it can be useful. Then, it's easier for the right person to make the right decision.

In this sense, all press is good press. All reporting is an endorsement of a topic, even if the reporting describes something as being "bad". Slam and smear articles often have a reverse effect. Pop musician Eminem provoked the media into smearing him, a tactic for free advertising. Readers pay more attention to headlines than to the ads next to them. As ideas spread, people think about them, reinterpret them, improve on them, and pass those ideas along to others.

Polished marketing and spin aren't as powerful as management often thinks they are. Cutting-edge leaders (not managers) see that tone changes nothing nor is it sustainable for the long-term when working with the masses. A kind tone of voice can't change the tide nor does it repair the damage of a lie. A rumor or false information may mislead the masses for a short time, but once the public knows the truth, the "spin" artists will have a very heavy price to pay.

Some unethical people think that they may be able to get their quick snake oil sales and take over the world fast enough so that, when the public finally learns the truth, it will be too late. They vainly hope to have their position already solidified by that time so that, even armed with the truth, the public can't wrest them from power. But visionaries know that this has never happened because it can't happen. Sooner or later, all liars meet their end. That's why I stick with the truth rather than spin. I don't bother with smear campaigns, neither to start them or fight them.

As for tone of voice: It's not what you say, nor how you say it, but why you say it. People know if you rebuke them from love. Kind words, when used to mask hatred, feel like venom.

While I'm in media myself, I don't confuse smoke n' mirrors with reality. People can see through spin because everyone spins their own stories with their friends on a daily basis. The idea that "all press is good press" is easier to accept and understand if one merely gives credit to the masses. For me, "marketing" is just another name for "know each other". The more accurate, the better.

Open-source licenses are another way that we can know each other. It is naturally human to share with each other, free of charge. We charge for some things, of course, but other things we enjoy sharing because it is the pleasure of fellowship. Neighbors share the products of their kitchens, farms, and workshops because sharing is part of what makes it fun to work.

Web and software developers cooperate through forums constantly. Discussion and sharing makes up a significant portion of the web—communication is arguably the the purpose of using the Internet. Sites like GitHub and SourceForge organize ways for programmers to give each other code to easily test, change, improve, and distribute software. Development forums are another tool to help people know each other.

Wikipedia has many contributors. Its transparency makes it easier to have our knowledge pooled and fact-checked. Humanity has engaged in Wikipedia-like activity all through human history. MediaWiki and other forum software merely allow people to do the same thing we've always done, just a little more efficiently.

Open sourcing leads to better quality of ideas and products because the best things naturally float to the surface because "bad" things fail by definition. "Bad" is nothing more than "that which fails, given enough time". This is why open-source information and development causes things to improve over time. This has implications for how intellectual property laws should be interpreted.

Intellectual property was never intended as a way to patent "good ideas", but to promote good ideas by allowing researchers to pay for their expensive discoveries. But that research would not be so expensive if we shared our discoveries in the first place. Open source development could reduce the cost of that expensive research. The idea of patents and copyrights was for the actual inventors to have privileged access to implement their ideas in their work, not just have a brainstorm, then sit at home and make money off someone else's work for half a century. Nor were intellectual property laws intended to be a way for large companies to buy and freeze the rights to discoveries that would put their outdated products out of business.

As an alternative to intellectual property, open source communities are very good at giving credit where due. The forums, even Twitter and social statuses, help secure the truth of who had original ideas. An idea is published to the web as open source, everyone knows who had the idea, the developer then gets the credit, respect, and the inquiries, yet everyone else is able to use the idea. This is the open source culture because open source developers know each other.

Knowing each other is the ultimate purpose of intellectual property offices. These offices seek to ensure that there is no question throughout society as to who invented or discovered something. Viewing intellectual property offices as another way to know each other helps one's understanding of other mass-media, advertising, and social movement issues.

There are many ways in which the "know each other" function of society plays out. Even Jesus's own process of Matthew 18:15ff, is natural and the most efficient way to know each other when problems arise. The principle of "know each other" applies to the courts, to emails, to coffee shops, company offices, podcasts, blogs, books, poetry, photography, education, history, language, marketing, board meetings, ambassadors, legislatures, and so many more. While each of these is a study all to itself, I have found each of them easier to understand as being part of the singular sector of society where people seek to know each other.
**Editing: A Broad Skill Set**

A press requires an editor in chief with multiple skills, who understands many different issues. Some of these relate to technology, others relate to ethics. All of them relate to knowing the times and sniffing-out the changes before they happen.

With media no longer depending on physical printing presses, news will take on different distribution forms. I foresee these new forms not being limited to social media and websites. Podcasting is still on the rise. I anticipate a return to email because it is "inter" while social messengers are generally "intra". RSS feed readers will become more viable when they can be sorted massive items better. Editors must have a "tech savviness" to understand these matters.

Of course, knowledge of traditional printing will never go entirely out of date; there is even a foreseeable renaissance for older publishing methods. Like antique cars, physical periodicals could be regarded as the "luxury" service while early access to articles could be "premium". This means that the press will not only continue as a viable business, its new forms and increased essential skill set will make senior editorial work even more necessary in the business world.

Editors must also have the ability to work with the eccentric culture of writers and broadcasters, as well as a deep understanding all the topics related to their publications (in our case, social trends, international cultures, politics, business, and Bible.) The editors need a philosophy about these topics, but not a biased agenda.

Agenda-driven news is not marketable to readers who want raw, brief facts and adaptable ideas to help inform their own decisions. Summaries must be "boiled down" honestly, which requires values. Agendas and values are very different, though not everyone understands the difference.

Agenda-driven bias in news reporting is about having a closed mind because, rather than aiming to share truth. Spinning the truth serves a deeper, more secretive purpose. Unfortunately, these agendas often lurk behind the goal of reporting the news in the first place. Many news outlets don't exist to tell the truth, but to hide it.

Dustin Hoffman's Wag the Dog illustrated how contrived news, combined with selective reporting, can be used shape public opinion. Anyone who has owned a dog understands: it is not unreasonable to ask whether a happy dog wags his body more than his own tail. Many times, it seems that the tail wags the dog. Likewise, reporting can create the news.

There is much speculation as to whether opinion polls are little more than self-fulfilling prophecies. News has often been easily exploited to shape public opinion. However, as more people become aware of video and audio editing capabilities, the masses are waking from their delusion that everything in mass media is undoctored truth. When spin fails to change outcomes, agenda-based media outlets step up their efforts, even to the point of absurdity.

Whenever you feel like the talking heads on TV "just don't get it", that is actually an indication that you shouldn't be surprised. They do "get it" all too well. They just don't want you to know the truth.

One might say they are "playing dumb" when they use every magic trick up their sleeves to keep the truth from you, no matter how foolish they look in the process. Such media personalities truly believe that the people believe ideas based on how information is presented. They don't respect their audiences enough to know that people can think for themselves. Of course, this is also seen in the business and religious worlds. But I digress.

Unlike agendas, values are about seeing many different perspectives. Editorial decisions should be determined by the interest of the readers. Readers choose their reading sources based on agreement with editors over the management of bias and values, not fancy graphics and rhetorical savior faire.

Philosophy of honesty is part of good editing. Editors must respect their audiences as much as they respect their own industry. Editing does require knowledge of the news industry itself, including style, writing, and communication in general. In our day, this also requires knowledge of web development and technology as much as knowledge of ink and paper was required by editors of the past.

I have by no means mastered these skills. In one sense, no one ever will. So, I don't write as an expert, but as one who understands the weight of how the different issues impact each other.

Arguably, audiences will understand the news better if they respect the editing industry as much as they respect their own ability to think for themselves. Editors should deliver news from the position of respect for the audience to think for itself; the audience should respect editing and journalism enough to expect a job well done in both craftsmanship and ethics. The respect really should go both ways and both the audience and the editor will be better off for it. They, too, need to know each other.
**The Future of Media and How News Gets Delivered**

The digital age has been described may ways. Essentially, the Internet has made the work of the printing press almost free. This will not eliminate the printing press, but the press will become a "want" rather than a "need". Printed material will likely have better quality. Important services that depended on the press in the past will be able to expand faster. The unnecessary remainder will blow away with the wind while the next new things crop up in their place.

The wide-spread availability of digital platforms is creating somewhat of a "haystack" for getting information. This will likely have two main effects: 1. Readers will naturally have more work in finding good sources. 2. The difference between news "reporting" and opinion will become somewhat blurred, resulting in the online blogosphere being an "information" industry.

With anyone being able to report the news, hashtags and forums will likely replace news networks. The good writing quality formerly used in press association-based journalism will shift to the blogosphere as the press network is replaced by the Internet network. Good writing ability and reader trust will no longer earn a job in the media, it will increase loyal readership for authors in the blogosphere. Everyone will play more of a role in the press, but those who develop better skills and have more inborn talent will naturally rise to the top, just like in any field.

News correspondence clubs will reach out to more people, as well as press networks like the AP. These will still be necessary for sources of raw information. But, having competition from the blogosphere, biased correspondence will fade out.

Terms like "news sources" will become less of a generality and more of a distinction from "info sources". Both sources will shift to websites and apps, moving away from newspapers and TV networks.

Writing, video, and audio will remain separate because their differences did not ever depend on technology, but on the different conveniences of the users' experiences. Podcasts can be played at work or on the road, but come with a convenient "pause" button. Users will gravitate toward specific sources, not because outlets will be limited because of the former cost of media technology, but because users will gravitate to the websites that attract: 1. The best talent, 2. preference of media forms, and 3. ethics and topics of the editorial staff.

In the new information age, "info sources" will stand out, not because of limited resources, but because of concentrated topics and talent.

So, a quality info source will need to attract talent. A good understanding of sales management says that that having a fun place for authors to write is every bit as much as the ability to make money. But that doesn't mean we should just doll out money, but give an opportunity for people to contribute as a labor of love and to showcase their work, whether written, photography, or artwork.

The talent of the editorial staff will require an ability to bring together the right talented people, not just as media contributors, but also attracting innovators in web development as well as relating to advertisers in a new way. So, in a later development, "info source" would even be replaced with terms like "info hub" because information these would be crossroads of many junctures. And "news source" will simply become "source", resulting in "sources" and "hubs" for news and information. Pacific Daily Times aims to be a hub that is close to the source.

One of the best kept secrets of the publishing industry is that the authors who drive the industry hate it. Publishers and authors are "fremenimes" who only work together because they need each other. With digital publishing, publishers need authors even more, while authors will soon discover that they may not need publishers at all.

Many authors would rather not deal with publishers; they want to write. This creates a need for authors and writers to be introduced to the people directly. Before, writers and readers depended on the publishing Establishment. Music and video are similar, as are programmers. With the digital age, even the artist-Establishment relationship is changing. Contributors and audiences want a place where they can come together without the old school gatekeeping. The timeless term for this place is "marketplace"—a bustling, crowded floor where everyone stands level and there are no middle-men.

There are few websites that focus on bringing authors, readers, and merchants together. The industry merchant-customer websites, like Etsy and ebay, where everyone can be a seller and a buyer. Then we have ebook publishers like Apple and Smashwords, where users can read or publish, similarly to the iTunes store. Many app stores work the same way. Blog sites, also, are for readers and writers. These are all examples of digital marketplaces.

For ebooks, connecting writers and readers can be a problem. While videos can easily go viral, ebooks need a little more promotion. This can be done in the same blog feed as the web articles. Web advertisements should link to articles written by the same authors on the same website, available in the same website store. Rather than having selling ads in articles, bloggers can post ads to their own products, music, ebooks, crafts, etc.

Traditional newspapers are having trouble finding their places in the online world. They are a mash-up of news sources and opinion, a formerly marketable need created in the old world where publication was a commodity. Online news needs to be free of charge because of "sharability". Once a newspaper charges a subscription, it becomes a "news source" comparable to the AP, a service to be used by professional editors who compile information for sharing at "info hubs".

Newspaper websites are a mere digital version of the printed paper. I humbly think this is a waste of talent. Online newspapers have the potential to fulfill a very different purpose.

Different sectors of the old publishing world have many different departments, whether or not in the same company, such as having Human Resources do the hiring, yet Acquisitions finding new authors, while Marketing promotes the books that Acquisitions chose for them. They don't know each other. They could all come together through an online newspaper.

While companies like Apple and Google are involved in ebooks and apps, these remain in different areas of their web products. Ebooks are over here, music is over there, apps are in a different place. No one sells ebooks along side home-made pottery displayed in the same blog feed as part of the same area on the same website page of the same author. This void in the digital marketplace can be filled by the new online newspaper: the true info hub.

The online newspaper should be a place where editors compile information from actual news sources—reporters and correspondents in the field—while bloggers and opinion writers advertise their own ebooks, crafts, services, etc. in-line with their articles. The "do-it-at-home" TV shows such as Martha Stewart has already proven that people want to hear from craftsmen, not just authors, artists, and pundits. The new online newspaper is an ideal place for those craftsmen, well as authors, artists, and pundits, all to be heard and promote their work at the same time.
**Advertising and Subscription News**

Web ads are a fast-changing factor of Internet. Many online newspapers have changed to subscription access in recent years (about 2013). Figuring out how to do advertising is a big question.

Early on, I decided that the Pacific Daily Times' business strategy should not include subscriptions. I did this not even knowing fully why, it just seemed right. As time passed, I began to see that, when a newspaper changed to an online subscription model, I had to ask myself as a reader and editor if that newspaper should be considered as a news source peer of sources such as the AP.

(If the Times ever reaches the stage where it is heavily syndicated, some subscriptions could be an option from a B2B standpoint. But that would relate to limited access as part of strategy more than a direct revenue decision.)

In a sense, I design the Times with myself in mind. Every week, while compiling headlines, I ask myself "What type of page would I want to visit once a day to quickly get the information that I want, so I can get to work with my other projects?"

I want advertisements geared toward the types of products I would be interested in learning about, rather than feeling harassed by them. I want to see an ad and say, "Oh, that brand has a new product! Glad to know." I want news, politics, daily advice, prophecy, weather, and prayer all on a single page, even including news from the last few days so busy people don't miss out.

The Times is unusual by having many "in-house" brands, as it were. We essentially seek to advertise our own products and services. Having to market ourselves, we can also market for others. Having to host for ourselves, we can also host for others. Amazon.com did this similarly by extending their hosting services to other developers.

From the perspective of a content writer, simple impression ads should be pay per view, not per click. As with printed periodicals, space is money. But pay per click services have another problem.

As an editor, I want control over which ads appear next to what content. As a web host, I don't see the purpose in getting paid for clicks because clicks on ads don't cost the content website anything—they only cost the consumer if the consumer buys something. The cost to the hosting website comes from ads that no one enjoys.

With most ad services, the content website has no control over designing the ads, so they shouldn't get rewarded for clicks or penalized (by no pay) if no one clicks on poorly-designed ads. So, there is no reason to charge extra for ad clicks.

I view pay-per-click advertising as a way for an advertiser to "squat" at a site, not paying for all the buzz their non-clicked ads create, then reimbursing through a very hands-off affiliate program. If you're going to run an ad, pay for the space. Getting people to buy is the advertiser's responsibility, not the billboard's. This touches on the topic of using technology because it is available rather than because it is needed, which we will explore more in the chapters on Premillennials.

There are other problems with charging for clicks on ads, rather than views. Clicks depend on the quality of the ad, not the quality of the sponsored website. So, charging for clicks creates an artificial variable for revenue that is beyond the control of the content website. The purpose of good advertising is not to get instant sales, but often to inform the public for future buying decisions or to create "familiarity"—to get people thinking about the product being advertised.

Paying more for click ads should only seem smart to someone who thinks that harvest is the main season a farmer should invest in. Just like the farmer invests in the fields in the spring and summer, but gets paid in the fall, so should the website should get paid for the impression ads; the advertiser, not the website, should get paid for the clicks. Ad clicks are the sole responsibility of the advertiser.

From an advertising perspective, effective ads get customers thinking about the product that they won't buy until weeks, months, or years later. Ads also create somewhat of a "running gag" about a product, generating familiarity in the market. I say this as a brand owner who advertises my own products on my own news website.

This is where we can learn something from brands like BMW and Mini (owned by BMW) with their public domain "viral" videos. The luxury industry seems to know advertising better than most. The cool thing about viral videos is that they only cost for production, not the actual ad space. And, vitals produce "familiarity" rather than "sale closing". If ad clicks were all that mattered, then BMW's virals wouldn't have been such a success.

Before getting into luxury marketing and strategies approaches, I need to say a few more things about business in general. There is a common spite for profitability and high-end products these days, which I'll look at more in the chapter on political correctness. Moreover, I have often predicted the coming "make money" movement where people are even more repulsed by greed because they are focused on the need to pay the bills and execute a sustainable economic philosophy. They will only respect ideas that turn the proper profit: not too much and not non-profit. More on that later.

In this context, the luxury sector has important lessons about marketing. People don't generally object to luxury ads, but only ads for low-cost products. Cheap ads try to "get people" to buy stuff. Using persuasion, these ads are outright annoying.

Luxury ads, however, offer some form of contribution, appreciation, creativity, humor, or surprise, comedic endings. The Geico™ gecko and Energizer™ bunny ads also capitalized on this method, as many Superbowl ads do as well. These create "familiarity". They don't need to be persuasive because the products already sell themselves. Even though Geico™ wasn't considered the best, it made a necessity inexpensive, which was what many people wanted.

I often say, "I've never met a single excrementalist from whom I failed to learn valuable lessons." Luxury isn't a credible business sector merely because of the snobbery or revenue, but because luxury brands tend to last through the years, which means they have some wisdom about long-term and sustained success. That wisdom extends to advertising.

The purpose of luxury advertising is not to generate sales, but to build the dream among those who don't own the product. In a sense, it can give society a concrete motivation to be productive and "bear much fruit". We all work better with a personal goal in mind. This is not to be confused with selfishness or greed, but our personal work must result in something dear to our hearts, even the ability to donate to a non-profit or to buy a nice cottage that we can invite our friends to.

This is where luxury advertising relies more on impression ads than ads that result in immediate sales. High-end customers buy from their own choices, not from compulsive shopping. So, click-pay ads for companies seeking thoughtful customers would actually be counterproductive. Long term customers will more likely come from impression advertising. But that requires a website designed for readers who would enjoy impression ads and may be less attractive to "compulsive clickers". After all, if readers are clicking, then they aren't really reading. A writer worth reading shouldn't want third-party ads to be the main attraction.

Readers are thoughtful, intentional people. This is what a reading website will naturally attract. Accordingly, these readers would be glad to see ads they find interesting, so long as they can interact with the ads the same as the main content of the website: they just want to read. So, click and impression advertising need different types of websites altogether. Reading sites would be geared toward impressions.

Advertisers who do a better job are more likely to make money from their ads, clicked or not, so it is in the best interest of the website to not give preference to click-ads, but to impression ads. This makes for a better website experience altogether, not just from the reading content, but the ads would be more enjoyable as well. Even at a lower price for impression ads, revenue is more stable and brings a better quality and longer-lasting experience to everyone involved.

The quality of ads affects the readers' experience as much as the content of the website. Ads are, in fact, a part of the content and the experience. So, better quality ads means better content, which means the website will get more views, which helps writers, advertisers, the website, and readers. So, the lower cost of impressions-only ads could result in higher revenue for the writers and advertisers, as well as providing readers with a premium-quality info source at no cost.

The website should also have some control over which ads are posted. The editorial staff should be more selective and involved with the advertisers. Filtering ads for quality, not just renting blank space to the highest bidder, will also help improve the overall quality of the website. Like the Super Bowl, users will be more likely to go to a website if they know that the ads will be better. So, a good website should develop a strong relationship with the advertisers.

Another consideration in advertising is to build a store into the newspaper site where customers can buy products. This could relate to sponsored articles. The site could have its brand where loyal readers can buy quotes, photos, products, and services. Having the brand of the site would mean more than just association with a cool brand, it would mean being part of the ethical values and the philosophy that drives the direction of that info source. It would also provide some kind of credibility, that the brand is trustworthy.

The site could sell products from advertisers directly on their website. This would be convenient for readers who already have an account with the info website and don't want to create a separate account in order to purchase a product. Since the website has already attracted good talent, advertisers might hire contributors as copywriters to explain their products in a special "sponsored articles" area.

Readers would likely be interested in the "sponsored articles" area for the same reason that a newspaper audience looks at classified or coupon sections. Having quality writing about quality products could turn business and innovation blogs into a profitable (therefore long lasting) and better quality source for information on some of the latest technology.

At the same time, this would never be able to fully compete with tech blogs because they are not precisely the same thing. But the two would complement each other via unofficial niche-to-niche cooperation. Tech blog writers may even want to follow the sponsored articles blogs they are worth reading.

By having ads as part of article content, rather than alongside content, "reblogging" or posting longer summaries of articles would become free advertising. "Stolen content" would actually help and not hurt.

Subscription-based news reporting isn't a bad idea, especially if it is closer to the news source, having reporters in the actual field. Good investigation costs money. Readers like to get news from multiple sources.

Shareable content should be legal to share. Paying for subscription-quality work is another way and that content should probably be protected. Either way, things aren't the same as they were when Guttenberg invented the press. Old outlets that refuse to change with time will be ignored out of business just as scribes were eliminated with the invention of fonts, while writers and printers boomed.
**Networks: SEO, Phone Books & Markets**

One of the recent trends in online marketing is SEO (search engine optimization). Many businesses will only hire a web developer who helps with SEO. The trap of SEO, however, is that people try to put all online businesses into the "SEO" category, without putting SEO into another parent category, which may not necessarily include every single website in the universe. Consider other industries...

Cars, motorcycles, and airplanes are all part of the "transportation vehicle" category, which is why BMW was able to make all three at one point or another, without changing their company's purpose. This gives BMW one advantage (among many) over Mercedes. Pens, pencils, and writing brushes are peers in the "writing tool" parent category; Pilot makes all three. There are many competitors in the pen-pencil industry. So, what is the parent category/industry of SEO and what are its peer categories?

SEO is basically the modern yellow pages. Back in the day, everyone had a phone book. Today, we just use a search engine to find what we want. But, the yellow pages are just another form of advertising. People can also learn about a product by watching TV.

With SEO and the yellow pages, consumers can find a new brand based on the need. White pages were a way to find the company that consumers learned about on the TV or radio. But, what about network marketing brands like Amway, Shaklee, and Watkins? They aren't in the yellow pages or on TV, but people know about those.

Network and referral marketing taps into existing friendships between people. John knows Shyvana who knows Tyrell who knows Denise... As Gladwell examines in The Tipping Point, it's not exactly true that everyone is six people away from knowing everyone else, but some people are.

You know that guy who seems to know everyone? He is well-networked on the social grapevine. Other types of networks involve mass media, including TV viewers, radio listeners, newspaper subscribers, phone book users... and people who search the web.

SEO is not a universal way to be discovered nor is it the only way. SEO itself is a pre-existing network. Take Google for example. Did you learn about Google from using Google? Of course not. You probably didn't learn about Google by searching on Yahoo before Google became famous. And where did we learn about Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Google? Our friends told us.

We learned about search engines, not from SEO, but from our friends. Friendships and reputation are the basis of SEO. Even the first Gmail accounts required a private invitation, which Google searches alone wouldn't grant. During the brief window when Amway branded itself on the web as Quixtar, the front page looked much like the tumblr login page—just a place to enter a username and password. It WAS one of the first web-based "social" networks. And, with no advertising, they reported about 70 million hits per day with no SEO.

Some people are loyal to Amway, just as how many of us are loyal to roads and streets. To this day, busy roads attract what is called a "marketplace". More recently, shopping malls emerged, which are basically a fancy type of marketplace. The trading floor near Wall and Broadway is a market. "Going public" can get a company's stock into that market where it will be introduced to millions of new customers (investors).

We find products, stores, services, discounts, good TV shows, news websites, app stores, shopping malls, downtown districts, marketplaces, radio programs, new gadgets, and even search engines through the people in our lives.

Take newspaper advertising as another example. Chicago Tribune readers may see an advertisement and learn about a new product or company in the classifieds section. This is because of the readership network that the Chicago Tribune has earned over the years. Millions of people read the Tribune, similar to social connections on Facebook.

If you want to get the word out about something, you can try to tell the people Facebook already convinced to sign up, or you can run an ad for Chicago Tribune's readers, you might pay for 30 seconds of airtime for FOX News loyalists, you can post a flier on the corner of those two downtown streets that many pedestrians loyally walk past, you can try to convince Google to like your SEO skills to reach loyal Google users, or you can tell that guy who is well-networked with the grapevine.

One of the oldest online businesses is Steam, a marketplace where game developers can sell their computer games to users across the world. Soon following were Apple's App Store, Google Play, ebook self-publishing platforms such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, and even the Ubuntu software centers. All these are all forms of marketplaces, like online shopping malls, which bring their own masses of loyal people who can see whatever is on display.

The Chicago Tribune, Amway, and Google bring masses of people just the same, even though they attract those people in different ways. Google attracts people, not so much through news, but through many online services. Just how the yellow pages are marketable because they are tacked onto the white pages that people already want, Google's SEO service attracts people and their ad service helps pay their bills. It was after the white pages were able to introduce the yellow pages that yellow-pages-only books were able to emerge as a solvent business.

Just like BMW (a car company) and Yamaha (a music instrument company) both increase their presence through the motorcycle industry, Google not only offers SEO, but other web-based desk services: calendar, contacts, documents, storage, etc. It makes sense—a typewriter, rolodex, calendar, lockbox, and phone book were often found on the same desk in a home, not even ten years ago. Google Play gets business through the people attracted to Android, which, together, are to Google what motorcycles are to BMW and Yamaha: diversification and market edge.

In money terms, Google, the Chicago Tribune, and Facebook do the same thing: they get people to like their service so they can have a lot of people to share ads with—they are networks, a collection of eyeballs. SEO, yellow pages, social media, news, and entertainment are all different ways to get the word out about something. These are peers in the parent category of "ad-monetized networking".

A company doesn't necessarily need to tap the SEO networks just because the company has a website. Websites can serve other purposes, such as a link for sharing social media or merely being a convenient place to buy stuff that, one way or another, users already know about.

The arguments for "buzz" or "social" or "network" marketing are strong: Advertisement costs are low, customers are loyal, and a business grows at a manageable rate. Easy-come, easy-go. If SEO can make you, then SEO can break you. As we see with the Clinton political career, the news media giveth, then the news media taketh away.

Rush Limbaugh grew his audience through word-of-mouth—people liked listening to him, then they talked about him... viola, his audience grew! This has already frustrated the news media's attempt to destroy him: If advertising and media don't giveth, then advertising and media can't taketh away. So, for Limbaugh, press is press—and all press is free advertising. Attacking him in mass media helps him because he didn't grow through SEO or advertising, but through word-of-mouth.

As a final example, Amway is worth billions of dollars and is still owned outright by the DeVos and Van Andel families—so a panic among stock marketplace investors won't artificially drive down the company's value because Amway's stock can't be purchased on the stock trading floor marketplace near Wall and Broadway—they aren't part of that volatile network. When Amway struggles, it is for different reasons, usually relating to negative word-of-mouth reputation.

There is something to be said about not advertising, not being a publically-traded company, and not being SEO optimized. The network that supports those networks—word-of-mouth—may be the stronger option. That's the road Shaklee, Tupperware, Mary Kay, Rush Limbaugh, Facebook, and even Google themselves took.

SEO is neither good nor bad, nor is it the Beginning and End of all web presence. It's part of a family of many different networks through which we can know each other.
**Social Marketing**

There were two general approaches to the "Twitter/Social" strategy. One method involves sending Tweets or posts to social media, linking or commenting about products. This method can use hashtags, mentions, links, or memes and doesn't require a personal social media account. Of course, this can also be done by a social media account connected to the brand, but having a special account for the brand or product is not required by this first method. In the blogosphere, this is usually done by commenting on posts, which blog owners have come to refer to as "comment spam". Everything relates to promoting products directly and driving traffic to where people can buy stuff. This is the "post" approach social media marketing.

The second method involves starting a social media account, not just to give the brand a presence or "mail drop" in the social blogosphere. This is more of a "jabbering-chattering" account that talks, mentions, responds, and interacts with other social media users, using an account that may or may not be branded, but has some kind of handle, like a meme, hashtag, account mention, url, or other breadcrumb trail that leads back to a site that promotes the products. The brand will use this account to "follow" other social accounts when, actually, the only purpose is to gain attention for whatever the brand is selling. In the blogosphere, this is done by signing up on a small blog's website, which has come to be known as "account spam". This is the "account" approach to social media marketing.

I tend to think that both of these methods are somewhat "fake". When normal users discover that the same copywriter is using Tweet Deck to manage the ten fake Twitter accounts that have been pretending to be interested in his posts, he may be a little irritated. These post and account methods to social marketing have been purported as the latest and greatest way to market, but, in my view, they are just the latest way to peddle snake oil.

I tend to take an approach I call "presence", which uses a simple, branded account that posts direct links to products or content, maybe mixing in other posts about related quotes or ideas, but not too much. There is no question that the account is from a brand that is proudly selling something. It makes it easy for users to follow a brand that they are already interested in. This is a softer, less aggressive approach. It focuses on creating the opportunity for a social buzz to emerge naturally, if the market accepts the brand, rather than trying to artificially create a buzz through fake accounts pretending to be real.

The presence approach, makes an assumption that the value of a product or service must be the driving force behind a brand's success. If people like it, they won't only use social media to tell their friends, they'll also talk about it over coffee, at home, on the phone, in class, at work, at the bar, etc. This might be called "coffee" marketing, remembering that real life is the main place that people talk about things they are interested in. When we do "presence" marketing, we don't just want a bunch of followers hashtagging our brand on a social media platform—we want friends discussing it on the millennia-old social platform known as "coffee".

"Coffee" or "presence" marketing means counting on a product being so good that friends will mainly learn about it from each other over coffee... or anywhere else. "Coffee" marketing intentionally avoids the fad social media post and account strategies and considers them to be a kind of "digital charlatans".

Take an example from politics of how social media was misunderstood. The Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan took over their national legislature in protest that their government kept signing trade deals with China at a record rate, while holding secret "classified" negotiations with China. One of the unreported aspects of their success was the role of social media. I only now feel that it is ethical to share this part of their story because the police have already figured it out—well, partially, that is.

In the book "21" where I describe the last 21 hours of the 21 day occupancy of the legislature, I explain that about 200 students took over the inner chamber of the legislature because 10,000 protestors had overwhelmed the police outside on the street. Those 200 students asked their friends to come help for this purpose.

When those first 200 protestors "called" their friends to join them in the protests—and when about 5,000 more people showed up within about 30 minutes—they mainly used Facebook and the popular Japanese social app, LINE. Having learned this, the Taiwan police started monitoring private LINE accounts, supposedly without warrants. Taiwan officials explained that, while some monitoring was related to fraud investigations—which would likely include a warrant and would be an ethical search—the generic monitoring of LINE accounts was mainly to "watch out for" future protest movements. Snooping around on LINE, the Taiwanese police hope that, should 200 protestors ask thousands of friends to surprise the police, the police will be ready next time.

Here is the problem with this approach of the Taiwanese police: Those students didn't need LINE, Facebook, Google Hangouts, or Twitter to talk to their friends. By stalking LINE accounts in response to the Sunflower Movement, Taiwan's government seems to have overlooked the "coffee" factor: The Sunflower Students didn't take over their legislature because the police weren't monitoring Facebook and LINE enough; they took over the legislature because their country was being dishonest.

While the Sunflower Movement used social media, they could have achieved the same results without it. Social media didn't empower those protests, bad government policy did. But governments which live in denial can't understand this any more than short-sighted companies that prefer snake oil over quality and call it "digital [marketing]" so they can sleep better at night.

In the "presence" approach to marketing, one simply uses an up-front, branded media account or website, with clear, no-nonsense posts as a way of "putting out the shingle". This is simply intended to give freedom to users, so the public can follow the brand through whatever means they want. In this approach, the long-term success of the product depends on the product's quality, not its ability to manage multiple fake social media accounts.

This requires patience and a willingness to have the product remain small in the beginning. It doesn't necessarily use advertising, though some advertising can be a good idea after a good number of posts have been tested and tried. Nor does it follow the SEO fad, where developers elbow their way to the top of search rankings. Being SEO-aware is a good idea for responsible website managers. But, again, it is quality, not SEO rankings, that will lead to a brand's long term success. The same is true for advertising.

The "natural buzz" growth rate helps to achieve something else: If a company truly grows through word-of-mouth advertising—not affiliate programs with paid references, but genuine sharing of a brand among friends—then the brand will gain the most loyal customers first and it will not be at risk of getting too big too fast.

Having that slow growth means that a brand having mostly a loyal, "cult following" in the beginning, will have customers who are more forgiving when the brand makes more mistakes in their early years. It also means that new customers will be more interested in sticking with the brand than simply trying it out.

In some terms, this is similar to how luxury advertising differs from fad market advertising. Luxury companies don't use ads to communicate to customers, but to non-customers. A luxury company's customers do the real advertising while ads serve the core purpose that only require "impression" and "familiarity" ads. Again, clicking on a web ad would defeat the purpose for which luxury companies advertise.

But as I have been looking at different approaches to business, and have been developing what I call the "master" strategy of business, which is different from luxury, premium, fad, or snake oil marketing strategies, the main assumption is that the brand is managed by a "master builder" and the customers want that master's excellent products and services. This doesn't have the snobbery of luxury, but it doesn't have the nuisance of junk mail and spam ads either. It focuses on mutual trust between the brand and the customer who have a more natural relationship of trust and experience.

We'll look more at the "master builder" strategy in the chapters on the Premillennial Era. For now, consider the "Gideon" model, that bigger is not always better. Saying, "No," in the short run is useful if it means saying, "Yes," in the long run. But knowing when to say, "Yes," or, "No," requires foresight. We'll get to that in the chapter on political correctness.

If a business grows slow, without any artificial propping-up from premature advertising, then it has a chance to get strong, build endurance, and develop calluses so that it can survive the rigors of a vibrant success.

If we get too lost in the technology aspect of social media, we can fail to recognize cyber snake oil sales for what they are. The slower, long-term approach may be a better preference for a brand that wants long-term loyalty to produce long-term growth. By snake oil standards, long-term growth looks like short-term failure. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
**Freebook vs Freemium**

While the marketing lemmings fawn over the phenomenon of digital snake oil, I've been working on what will probably be the next misunderstood fad of digital media: freebooks—ebooks that are free.

As a write, I started selling ebooks back when no one read them. I quickly canceled my Amazon and Barnes and Noble ebook seller accounts because, like most writers, I wanted to give my time to writing more than giving my time to bureaucracy. Smashwords streamlines everything much more efficiently.

Two years after I got involved, the ebook market started to take flight. I've seen how my free ebooks, as well as my preebooks, tend to promote themselves. The market loves free ebooks. (Preebooks are 'pre-premium' release ebooks. They are free for the first so many downloads, to reward an author's or brand's loyal followers and provide feedback before hitting the big market.)

The "freebook" strategy will likely become the newest fad among digital snake oil lemmings after a while. The trend for authors and bloggers (around 2012-2015) was to offer premium ebooks free for users who share on social media or subscribe to newsletters. This is neither freebook or preebook marketing; it's name-piling. I write ebooks for a different set of reasons.

The freebook strategy is about having an ebook that will always be free as a gift to the world. Preebooks are free for a time; it's about early birds who get the final release free for proofing the beta version of the book. Usually, freebook and preebook authors also blog. So, I like to call them "blothers" (blogger-authors). (Since many blothers also podcast, it is tempting to drop the term 'blothcaster' once in a while. But that's not only too far with inventing new jargon; it's a distinction with no meaningful difference.)

If you want to know who knows real marketing and who is just following fads, watch over the next two years: The "free ebook" media/marketing fad will be the next most popular fool's gold of digital marketing, about as much as Twitter/Social was the "hip" thing to do around 2010. And I don't mean name-piling, where authors offer premium ebooks free in order to get subscribers, but about "free books"—connecting a free ebook with a person, brand, or idea.

While the marketing fad will talk about it and probably call it a "freebook", it won't be a "freebook" at all. It will just be rebranded snake oil marketing. A true "freebook" is a no-catch and good quality review of heritage and philosophy. People will love reading it and it won't feel like an advertisement or infomercial.

Again, while I don't consider myself a manager of luxury brands, mostly because I don't like the "snob" factor, every industry has valuable lessons to offer. One important piece of wisdom we learn from the marketing strategies of luxury companies is the importance of remembering their heritage. Luxury companies usually have a book that tells their history. This is sometimes called the "company book".

The "company book" idea, to tell the brand's story, has also been misunderstood in recent Christian non-profit marketing fads. Christian marketers often call them "testimonials". My email inbox has been bloated with sack-o-flour-eating "testimonial" spam requesting donations over the last two years from Christian non-profits. But I always sit there and think to myself—if your ideas are so wonderful, why not send me a good article to read with a donation link at the bottom?

When the Moody Bible Institute first started, DL Moody insisted that they get involved with the Press ASAP. I was a student when Moody Monthly (their magazine) changed to a bi-monthly periodical, then closed completely. Perhaps it wasn't lack of relevance that ended their magazine as much as it was the rise of digital information. The editor actually visited our Mass Comm class early during those years. We saw first-hand what he was thinking and discussed it as freshmen. I won't say more other than that it's painful to watch a sinking ship, especially when you know it's sinking before most other people do.

In addition to the magazine, Moody would also publish and mail devotionals. However, these have a cost to the school and press. With the Internet, that cost could be eliminated.

One option for the school is to make these kinds of periodicals free via digital, as part of a "freebook" model for receiving donations. Articles could have a simple, non-distracting "donate" comment at the bottom. Or, posters, cards, and other printed materials could be sold as fundraisers, which would require a little more quality than traditional periodicals. But, for Christian colleges to do this, the non-profit sector would need to understand the purpose that luxury companies have for a "company book". It's not to stir up loyalty through customer testimonials.

The company book is not a testimonial book; it is a history-heritage book. It allows people at the company to have a daily renaissance so they don't lose touch with their roots. This probably contributes significantly to their long-term success. Companies don't blast visitors with the book. They don't mass-produce it and mail it to every third person in a zip code. The company book is usually known only paying customers, though it is probably available upon request.

Early on in a non-profit's growth, testimonials start surfacing and result in a kind of snowball effect. In that phase, when testimonials help increase participation and donations, it's tempting to do more "testimonial" marketing. But this is a bad idea.

Testimonials should never make up more than 1/3 of a non-profit's marketing. The other 2/3 must continue with the messages that were most frequently marketed in the formative years, during the slow, steady, pre-knee growth. Dropping those 2/3 elements is tempting because the critical mass growth stage comes from a delayed effect. When an organization drops it's early messages and methods, growth seems to continue, but this is from yesterday's momentum after the engines have stopped. An organization's growth and strength usually comes from what the organization did two years prior.

When non-profits make a noteworthy shift toward "testimonials" in their marketing, it's clear that the leadership forgot one thing: No organization starts because of testimonials because there are no testimonials at the organization's founding. Usually, this means that the leaders aren't taking a good look at their heritage, which is the problem. "Testimonials" are a heritage-like feel good when the secret ingredients of the heritage have been abandoned. It's an indication of a sinking ship that doesn't yet know its sinking.

In the early stages of an organization, there are no testimonials to share. So, what is 2/3 during faster growth is actually two-halves of quality and message in the strategy of service and marketing in the early, formative years. Testimonials help, but they don't replace the fuel in the fire or the steam in the boiler. Keep the message and keep the quality. A look at almost any non-profit organization's growth and fall patterns will bolster this idea.

The purpose of the company book is to remember the heritage, to explain to the initial principals of the founding, and to remind customers that you intend to remember and stay loyal to that heritage. If this is genuine, the company won't flash the "company book" as a banner out front. It's almost like a Constitutional Conservative in American politics. Conservative Americans don't hand out the Constitution right and left in other countries. Instead, they all keep a copy of it tucked away in their homes and talk about it among themselves.

So, the "freebook" concept isn't another social media ploy. It is somewhat of a "company book" approach. But I didn't initially learn this from studying luxury companies. I learned it from the founder of another Christian organization: Enoch Olson.

When Enoch was starting Springhill, he worked as a guest speaker around Michigan, speaking for free, in what some might call an early "freemium" speaking model. His messages had quality for the same reason that he didn't charge for his appearances: He was doing something more than just giving speeches and teaching—he was running a kids' camp.

Enoch wouldn't rely on testimonials in his stories and speeches. Rather, his talks were like an h'orderve of what it was like under his teaching and leadership at the camp. As parents, donors, and potential staff listened to Enoch, they didn't go home inspired by testimonials from other people—they went home inspired by their own testimonials after having listened to Enoch.

After hearing Enoch speak, not everyone would sign up to work or attend camp. Not everyone would donate money to keep the camp going. But the response was enough. For everyone else, Enoch was able to minister to them at no charge. That's the way he wanted it. Had Enoch been a programmer, he would have thrived in the world of GNU-Linux.

The "freebook" model basically does the same thing. It is not limited to blothers. It can work for any business or organizational model. Within a few years, both people and brands will have their own freebooks as much as they have their own YouTube channels.

Enoch pioneered not only fundraising, recruiting, and marketing, he also implemented the freemium strategy before it even became a main part in the technology world. His was the proper way to do "freemium" business.

Consider two contrasting freemium examples. League of Legends did well because playing all games is always free. It's the skins and point boosts that people pay for. Dropbox, however, offers some space free and more space at a cost. This is a problem because "free space" was the first thing that got customers in the door. The pay-per-use services must be different from the free services.

Listening to Enoch preach was an experience that listeners would always remember. Though it was similar, it was not the same experience as a week at Springhill. This is the difference between offering one h'orderve free and more h'orderves at a price vs offering a plate of free h'orderves and charging for the full meal. Dropbox should have charged for something other than what they gave away.

As I work and make profitable businesses that can create jobs, I have a surplus of extra ideas. I put those ideas into ebooks. Maybe these books will result in some business flow, but that doesn't matter. My customers are increasing on their own without conventional advertising because the product is good. That itself encourages stable (slow, steady) growth. Freebooks are my way to reach my goals, whether as a blother, an editor, or an entrepreneur. While freebooks are h'orderves of something greater, h'orderves can be filling.
**Technology and Renaissance**

Future business won't expand into any and all technology available, but only into the available technology that the market needs. This is where a lot of tech futurists describe what "could be", but that no one would ever actually do in the long term. If we want to know how technology will be used in the future we can't just look at the capabilities of technology, but we need a Venn diagram overlapping tech capabilities with market needs.

This is where previous generations got it wrong and were tricked by the system. They expanded into too much technology for simple tasks because they like the gadgetry or the convenience. Generation X liked microwave dinners when they were neither the most inexpensive, the most time-efficient, the most delicious, nor the healthiest. They just liked the idea of a push-button meal, which is more of a combined fascination with technology and convenience than anything related to eating. But once the honeymoon with new technology wears off, we only keep using the technology that works.

Look at the shut-down of Google glass. They would have been amazing glasses, but the privacy invasion more amazing. There weren't enough initial deep-pocket buyers willing to give up so much privacy. So, we should know by now that the old trend of the market using any and all available technology no longer holds.

Take razors as another example. Both of my grandfathers liked electric razors. This was arguably for the quick convenience. But the electric razors just don't shave as well as the older razors. Disposable blades are okay, but they are costly and only do an easy job. Older razors, like straight edge and safety razors, cut better, clear longer beards, and exfoliate more thoroughly.

The difference between straight edge and safety razors is mostly about being macho for having the guts and self-control to use the straight edge, though there are some other advantages for each. Old-fashion shaving cream is also about quality. It doesn't require a bulky can that needs throwing away, and it doesn't get sticky after about a minute.

When Admiral Byrd originally did a TV interview about exploring the South Pole, he explained that a likely benefit would be to store food in Antarctica because the cold climate would be a massive refrigerator that would preserve food for the future. But he was an explorer, not a futurist. And when he made this comment, he was considering the potential, but not the probable use for what he would find at the pole. Looking back 70 years at his suggestions, it is easy to see how difficult it is to understand new discoveries. Knowing what is likely to happen depends on knowing people well enough to know what people will actually do, not just having the new knowledge.

The assumption that society will dash to use any and all new technology infects many futurists. Users use from their need; futurists predict from their fascination. The younger generations trend towards renaissance of older methods is not because of nostalgia, but because they want whatever works best.

This is why renaissance and technology revolutions tend to happen back to back. Consider that the Guttenberg printing press came along about the same time as the Italian renaissance, whose scholars' handwriting was the basis for our lower-case Roman fonts, which were eventually used in the press. (Of course, the capital letters were from ancient Rome, which is why they are called Roman fonts.)

Arguably, the information widely availed by the press inspired the renaissance by whetting society's appetite for more information. But, information is just one path that renaissance and technology can journey down together. Our hunger for knowledge drives us to discover knowledge of the future while uncovering knowledge of the past.

Speaking of the press and information industry, with Pacific Daily Times, I didn't want to create just another newspaper with my editorial style. I wanted to do a good job of basic journalism of course, but I also wanted to help technology reach its unreached potential by meeting society's unmet needs. Arguably, with all the dishonesty in journalism in the world today, journalism itself doesn't meet the needs of journalism. But, that problem has grown from gate keeping—something else that technology could help "break through" as it were.

The information world is no longer dependent on big investments to build publishing houses—largely because the Internet sends the same information faster at almost zero marginal cost, but also because of travel and other forms of communication. The printing press is more of a "want" and much less of a "need". This doesn't mean that physical newspapers will disappear, they will simply become wants, perhaps luxury or premium tools, or serve a low-cost need that the Internet can't fulfill.

But printing (including audio-video media) was not the only reason for which news organizations formed. Publishing is largely about notoriety via community. If other people are interested in reading you, then you are worth reading. A newspaper both printed and provided that notoriety. So, the credibility, trust, and reliability of a publishing community not only create and distributes that information, more importantly, it notarize the authors. People will go to news websites because they know they will have authors they know they want to read.

Through better communication, we may no longer depend on as much "press associations" (like AP and Reuters) since, technically, anyone can be a reporter. "You report" features make use of this to an extent, though the Internet still has a way to go before it will entirely replace reporting networks. Those agencies and associations will probably not disappear entirely, but they may mature into info hubs, where stories are collected and aggregated. Well-written stories are more likely to be passed on. Good aggregators are more likely to gain an audience. So, there will always be a need for good journalism and good editing.
**Resume vs Folio**

Once I overheard an accomplished engineer on the phone with a kid from a large HR hiring firm. The kid was trying to understand what was written on the engineer's resume. "It's huge," the engineer said. "This disk I built weight over one ton! So, when I say I designed a lathe for a manufacturer, I'm not talking about a garage science project."

Like other Establishments, the hiring industry has its own obsessions—especially with resumes. It's interesting... Adding a "P" to the word "resume" gives us "presume". That's what resume's are, "presumption" without the "P". Can we truly know each other based on a short stack of papers?

Recently, I was introduced to a friend of a friend and told him I was a writer. He immediately sent me his resume and asked for mine. He didn't seem to understand that writers don't have resumes, we have folios. He would have done better to ask for a link to my blog and a store where my books can be seen. More importantly, I thought it would be strange for a resume when casually introduced to an acquaintance. But, apparently, that makes sense to a lot of people these days.

Consider your same friends on different social platforms. On Facebook, everyone is a movie and poster lover. On Twitter, everyone is either an expert in pithiness or good at retweeting those who are. On Instagram, everyone is an amazing photographer. And on Linkedin, everyone is an expert in every field imaginable.

Our fakeness doesn't stop with online platforms. In the roaring 20's, everyone on Wall St. was a trading expert, even the shoeshine boys (probably why it crashed). In the 70's, every jobless hippie was a political expert—and look where that took us. On Sunday morning, everyone is a Bible expert—how is that going? At the shopping mall, everyone is a fashion genius—look where that industry is headed.

With how obviously fake we are, the way we present ourselves changes depending on the arena where we meet each other. Should we expect resumes to be the grand exception to phoniness? Why do employers trust them so much? Has resume-based hiring helped the economy and job sector?

Resumes are collections of paper used to express who we are based on our past. Folios, however, simply show who we are through what we have done. Resumes change, depending on who we want to impress, just like any other sector. That's why we all appear as different people on each social media platform. In a sense, a resume is little more than smoke and mirrors for people who have worked, but, for whatever reason, think they can't show what they've done in a book.

I have no problem presenting a list of certifications, graduations, and career history. But that can be listed in half a page at the front of a portfolio. For people with a long history, use a smaller font. Investors and artists both use portfolios. Job-seekers should also. So, why doesn't the HR industry change? Are they stuck in a rut? Do they not know how to recognize good work when they see it?

The resume hiring process involves filtering applicants by first looking at resumes, then conducting a series of interviews. But I never ask people for resumes. Resume writing is a professional skill to itself—a skill that I don't want to confuse with the skills needed for doing the actual job. It almost seems like an HR placebo. I have often wondered whether the resume-hiring process is no more effective than randomly selecting any applicant meeting the minimum qualification.

While I haven't read any, I would wager that an in-depth quantitative research study would show that a random interview selection process, rather than resume selection, leads to a lower turnover rate. Preferring an applicant's ability to make a good resume may actually filter-out the applicants who are more focused on doing good work than looking good on paper. 30-year-old kids in HR are more likely to throw-out the resumes that list higher-quality skills, merely because they don't understand the work of a 50-year-old professional. The same is true of a 50-year-old MBA trying to understand the engineers he despises. Ask any GM employee of the 80's if they felt respected by management and send me an email if they do; I want an interview.

The resume selection process naturally filters out the people who are more focused on doing good work than on appearing good on paper. Folios are opposite from this. Using resumes as the industry standard for hiring is not based on quantitative research, but the mere preference of MBA's and accountants. The same is true for many business proposals. People who have good ideas don't want to squander their learning time to express their creative ideas to leaders who don't have any.

The financial industry doesn't even use resumes. They just hire all minimal-qualified applicants and allow them to prove themselves. While every company can't do the same thing, the publishing world can, thanks to the digital age.

As for other industries, if the companies I talk to require a resume or business proposal, I say, "Write it yourself after we talk. Then, what you see on paper will accurately reflect your understanding of me." But, I'm not looking for jobs, I'm looking to create them. When I choose business partners, people who want paper before talking probably won't be all that fun to talk to and they especially won't be fun to work with.

Cooperation between talent and management is a huge problem. Two examples come from the programming world. First, there was Open Office. After being acquired by Oracle, the programmers became irritated (for reasons undisclosed) and left. They continued the same project as Libre Office. All the open source web and software developers know about this because they are all friends on the web forums. In other words, the geeks know each other better than management does.

A second example comes from Zenphoto. One of the main programmers became irritated with management and left to continue the same project as ZenPhoto20. He has a huge following, just like Libre Office. This is another secret about marketing and branding: They are not as important as they think they are. Quality of work is more important than marketing ideas. Jesus, a master builder himself, even said, "I search mind and heart, yet I reward everyone according to their work."

Customers don't stay loyal to a brand once people learn that the mastermind moved on. Instead, they follow the mastermind because they like his work. Even if no one knows that the mastermind quit working for the company, users will know something is wrong because the quality of work will change. One sure way to know that a brand lost its mastermind is that they start marketing with testimonials. This is often a way to compensate for having left the days when the brand had talent.

In the technology world, the gadget market also seems to be following its mastermind, Steve Jobs—even to their own graves. The mastermind departed and there are no longer any new, good products to copy. New gadgets are merely old ideas with improved technology. But we still don't have many new gadgets since the iPad. Reviewers don't seem to know the difference between new technology and useful gadgets; though Woz seems to know the difference. I discuss that more in Innovation: Branding New Tablets. While we're on the topic, we didn't love Steve Jobs for his resume, but for his work.

Resumes list the jobs we tried, but for whatever reason left. We should all strive to know each other for our work, not for our effort. This applies to writers, musicians, artists, inventors, craftsman, and programmers. I have come refer to all of these as "contributors". Info hubs connect contributors with each other and with the public. More and more, we're all becoming contributors, looking for a "market" and a "place" where we can get to know each other.

So, the digital information age has introduced an alternative to resumes. Online folios are embedded into online marketplaces and can be seen everywhere. We see them in the number of downloads and media shares. Those numbers don't lie because they cut out the gatekeepers. We see these numbers on social platforms such as Twitter and Pinterest, coding platforms such as GitHub and WordPress.org, in app stores like Apple and Google Play, and in media stores such as iTunes and Amazon.

Folios are the overdue need that the information age is finally delivering. The gate-keeping Establishment is fading across industries. Skilled contributors can now publish and promote themselves, without needing to go through acquisitions or HR. The credibility formerly brought by syndication, signing, and publication is being replaced with social shares. With info hubs and marketplaces springing up, we're all getting to know each other a lot better than we did before.

History is also debunking the myth of "education", which was mostly intended to prepare people to work for someone else. But with the ability to publish our own work, the new question of vocational training will no longer be, "How can I make a resume good to impress a boss?" but, "How can I make my folio good in the eyes of my own customers?" Spinning our own work history is now history. We've either done the work and learned the skill or we're at home wishing we had.

With companies and publishers and other gate-keeping Establishments no longer being necessary, the companies that survive will be the companies that contribute, even when contributors don't need them. Working for companies will still be an option, but that will more likely be a cultural decision. Companies like Disney and Apple have inspiring cultures that are attractive, both for their contributors and their audiences. Cooperative creativity won't go out of style; bad management already has.

I take this approach with the Pacific Daily Times because I hope to bring specific types of readers and contributors together. That is what multi-author blogs do. The Bible, Business, Culture, Politics genre is a rising demand, but generally untapped. There are many periodicals that focus on one or more of these, but not all.

One idea I had during the summer of 2015 was to invite war vets to write at the Times. Vets generally have good self-discipline and good command of the English language. They have seen life and have an interesting perspective. They might differ politically, but at least their arguments won't be scripted (see the chapter on Scripts). It's also a way to give back to those who gave to their country.

Vets have often written amazing books or stories and had strong careers in media. Tolkien wrote much of his background for Lord of the Rings in the WWI trenches. CS Lewis was inspired to write The Chronicles of Narnia when refuge children from the city were running around his house during WWII. But I first got to thinking about inviting vets to write after seeing what they were already writing. In other words, I thought to invite them from seeing their work, not their work history.

So, I admit the Times has some gate keeping of its own because I'm the editor of course. That said, I don't think we need to limit open-invitation info hub platforms in general. I have my own plans for open-invitation info hubs down the road with other web products I am already in the early stages of developing.

If you or anyone you know has already written some stuff, podcasted, vlogged, etc., consider a stop by pacificdailytimes.com/join.

With publishers no longer being as necessary as they once were, the Establishment is being forced to change their competition strategy. Media moguls and large employers are being replaced by the Internet itself. In more ways than one, Establishments that resist this change are trying to punch the "cloud".

While some institutions are shifting to create marketplaces and info hubs, many of the gatekeepers are going head-to-head with the contributors themselves. This is where the hidden bias of the news media Establishment is exposing itself for what it has always been. I try to be above that. You should too. Don't get angry. Just contribute.
**Helping Contributors**

With the changes in the digital age, good contributors still want good info hubs as much as serious readers do. Some of the biggest needs in the writing world remain distribution, reading experience, and notoriety. I'll share some of my own inside perspectives on the roadmap for the Times, though these ideas continuously develop. Remember the target areas: Distribution, reading experience, notoriety.

On the one hand, I wanted the idea of a landing page, somewhat like the front page of printed newspapers. A good front page is part of distribution in any newspaper, printed or online. But, at the Times, the front page would quickly connect users to individual contributors rather than with the newspaper itself.

Rather than the front page being one of many pages, it sort of replaces the blank login page like on many social media sites with something like a "pretty" drudgereport.com. So, the front page was not a sample of more to come, but a way to follow headlines from the outside.

Part of my initial purpose in starting the Times was that I wanted to publish my own articles as a peer, allowing others to share their ideas the same way I shared my own. So, I designed the site so that each contributor has an individual blog. Mine is jessesteele.pacificdailytimes.com, with the same style and options as everyone else's. All work from contributors can get published; the editor only decides what goes to the front page. Any blog can be followed. This has less gate keeping than even a traditional newspaper and it is another reason why multi-blogs and info hubs will become more popular in the future.

Distribution is complex. The front page is only one option for getting new content. Through feeds and social following, individual readers can act more as their own editors. Email is another option, which I predict is rebounding as a means of communication. Social messengers are convenient and had some fad momentum in the beginning, but email will never phase-out of Internet because it is real—from one web server to another. Through email, one can communicate with friends, be on record, have more privacy, and follow news stories all at the same time.

Auto publishing to social media allows users to follow posts through their accounts if they want to. This use of social media is different from pretending to be someone's friend on Twitter. Readers accept articles that are automatically published on social media as long as the content is from real people. It's nice to have the option to follow the same front page content on Twitter without ever going to the front page.

Reading experience is a work in progress across the web. Black letters on a white background are useful for some things, such as a landing page, but not for reading long documents. Traditional newspapers used gray paper for cost-related reasons, but this incidentally made for a better reading experience because it is more relaxing to look at.

Black on white is for ink and paper. Lighted monitors need white on black for easy reading. (Black backgrounds don't always save energy, sometimes black uses more.) Much of the web hasn't adjusted to this, however. While many mobile apps have a "night mode" that users prefer, doing this on a newspaper site would make it difficult because most Establishment newspaper websites are still stuck on using white backgrounds. It's not that readers don't want a black background; they just don't want to constantly have to readjust their eyes while switching between black and white sites.

So, for reading articles, I have been considering warm, gray backgrounds with very scalable, "responsive" themes to fit well on all devices. On the one hand, it looks like a newspaper. It's not as hard on the eyes as a white background and its eye adjustment isn't painful when navigating to other sites. White letters on a dark gray background as "night mode" is something else we will be considering in the future, but that requires a transitional theme that doesn't bog down bandwidth. Though, I'm still toying with this concept.

The website, front end and back end, deals with distribution and reading experience. The other remaining issue for writers and readers is notoriety. Readers want to quickly filter the web to find the writers they want; writers want their new audiences to quickly find them. Bookstores, info hubs, and multi-blogs are kind of like meet-up/matchup events. Search engines can help, but they are not the only way, nor do search engines know a person's individual preferences—as much as Google wants to try. This is where notoriety comes into play.

Notoriety can be seen by popularity of articles and shares. But this is difficult to verify without the web. Part of my solution was to grant notoriety in the field. It's kind of difficult to get a Google-verified badge to prove where your Blogspot is.

So, I decided to issue press ID badges. They use a QR code to link to their content at the Time's site and another scan code for internal verification. A badge really needs information anyone can use to verify (QR and English) as well as internal verification (I prefer PDF-417). This is more convenient than having a phone number to call and verify that the journalist is an employee of an ink-pressing house (like the old newspaper days).

Press ID badges themselves are changing with the digital info age. But they are also changing for political reasons. Technology is a game changer and control-minded leaders are likely to lash back, but it's too early to know how much technology and politics affect each other in press work. The autonomy of the press may have been a phenomenon of the ink age. But it's too early to tell.

ISIS is beheading journalists and Taiwanese police issued a statement at the beginning of 2015 that they wouldn't allow the press to cover public demonstrations—even though Taiwan is a democracy. While that will not likely last long in Taiwan before the people elect a new government to fire those police leaders, press ID badges are not opening up as many doors as they used to.

The original idea of the press ID was that an agent had a legitimate goal of getting information to the public. He was on staff with the local mass media institution (the printing house) and was therefore the modern equivalent of Facebook or Twitter himself. So, while some governments are allowing more people from the general public to attend press conferences, some may discontinue press conferences altogether, replacing them with open town hall meetings. Governments can have their own social media outlets, homepages, and blogs. Info hubs have already replaced media Establishments. We're just waiting for the market to catch up.

With field journalists being targeted, police restricting more access to the press, and armatures printing their own press ID badges or buying them online for a small fee, the concept and definition of a press ID badge will change. It may be replaced by a "notoriety" badge, though it may always bear the name letters "PRESS". Someone who has a photo ID with a QR code linking to a Facebook page with one hundred thousand followers should probably get through more doors than a staff reporter from the local floundering newspaper that no one reads.

So, by putting all the web capability under one roof—writing, podcasting, social media sharing, aggregating, emailing—then connecting it to a QR code issued by the info hub itself, writers will have what they need to get access to good information so their audiences can trust them. This won't attract reporters working for "the man"; but individual authors, collaborators, personalities, and bloggers trying to get their messages out. I figure that should be worth writing for as much as it is worth reading. We'll see.
**New Digital Style Guides**

Style standards in writing and publishing keep the same the things that are the same so that the uniqueness of an article has the freedom to stand out. But the people who craft style guides struggle to keep the same style in every situation. This is part of why style guides have so many editions and why there are so many guides.

Readers don't need to think that style is important, as long as the writers do, just as how a mechanic needs to know the inside of the car while the driver's expertise should focus on driving skill to keep the road safe. But, it's always nice to have some awareness of what's happening under the hood.

I think every writer should be familiar with at least one AP Stylebook edition. My personal preference in titles is the Chicago style, though I'm considering sentence capitalization for online articles for a number of reasons. Lower-case letters are easier to read. Titles are faster to type if only the first letter needs to be capitalized. Sentence capitalization of article titles would be coterminous with Tweet and status content. How much time do we spend laboring and bickering over which letters should be capitalized in a title? And how many musicians and sound mixers get titles wrong merely because they don't know what a preposition is? I mean, never, never capitalize "the" unless it's the first word of a title, and never make the last word "the".

Within content, I tend to capitalize belief systems and "quote" terms that I count as jargon or excessively figurative speech. Perhaps this is because I enjoy reading the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which capitalizes words such as "Life". With words like "ebook" and others, I don't use the hyphenated "E-mail" format because that hyphenated system was for typewriter generations (and the old press Establishment that still thinks 'e-mail' is from that 'other system'). Few ever recognize the word "E-book" as referring to something that can be purchased on Amazon.

New ways of writing in the digital age simply out-date old school stylebook purposes. This was first realized when the standard two spaces after every period changed to only one. Should parentheses and adjacent punctuation be arranged to be tidy like in days of yore (or should we arrange parentheses to be copy-cut-paste-friendly)? (Periods would appear within the parentheses in a completely parentheses-enclosed sentence.) But if part of a larger sentence, the parenthetical phrase should be ready to be cut out without having to retype the period (if you get my drift).

When I place my parentheses, I always ask myself, "Can this be omitted from the sentence?". If it can, I make copy-paste able to do just that; (if not, I wrap the closing punctuation inside.)

Perhaps, in anything digital with copy-paste ability, copy-paste should be the main question where parentheses and periods are concerned.

If we take the rout of being copy-paste-friendly in digital punctuation, perhaps titles should use the single 'quotes' to meet Canadian and Australian (and New Zealand) readers, while being past-ready to be put into double "quotes" in sentences, dialogues, and identifying titles within content. This way the title Apothecary 'mixes' ingredients could easily be wrapped in quotes in an article: "Apothecary 'mixes' ingredients" and the single 'quotes' take up less space in a large font, which can make a huge difference.

Within content, titles could use unquoted italics with any trailing punctuation also being italicized, such as mentioning The Great Gatsby, and would follow Chicago capitalization for books, periodical names, and audio episodes. Double quotes would be used for titles where style restrictions prohibit italics, such as ebooks.

Continuing Chicago caps in titles would identify books from articles on feeds like Twitter and other non-syllable statuses. Quotes in blog articles would continue to use single 'quotes' in any of these situations to make titles both paste-friendly, quote-wrappable, and easy to identify. So, Apothecary 'Mixes' Ingredients would be an ebook title, Apothecary 'mixes' ingredients would be an article title, and just how they are in italics here, on Twitter they might be wrapped in double quotes.

In the digital age, do the traditional rules for commas need to continue? I love the Oxford comma in content, but I avoid it in titles because its applicability should be obsolete if titles are chosen properly and titles need to scrutinize every character. I uses the ampersand as the final separator, even in four-item lists: one, two, three & four.

One thing that always irritates me is the double dash -- in content. Two hyphens are not the same as a medium-sized – (en dash) and long dash—(em dash). The medium-sized en dash is good for crediting quotes, while the long em dash—well, that works to interrupt your own sentence. Word processors introduced a feature that converts two hyphens into a long em dash—but they are not the same thing.

The long em dash is one character. Users don't seem to understand this and, more and more, the double hyphen appears all over media, even in professional, syndicated columns! Perhaps keyboards should have an em dash key—or, better yet, users should learn to type Alt+0151 on the numeric keypad for the em dash and Alt+0150 for the en dash (in Windows, Linux and OSX are different). Knowing how to type the em dash—and knowing when to use it—is one element that separates the boys from the men in the world of writing.

When it comes to combining words for #hashtag taxonomy, I prefer camel-casing to make the words easier to identify. This is often used in codes like javascript, where the first letter is lower-case, but all sequential words begin with a capital. For example, write a hashtag as #poetryIsCode, or my own Twitter creativity account @poetryIsCode. Everyone doesn't do it, but I do.

The core issue of style can't be addressed in any one book. They should be an ongoing and threaded discussion among writers. This is where a community-centered info hub is useful. It can have a writing style discussion area so that questions can be answered, needed changes can be addressed, and the world can observe in real time.
**Ink by the Barrel**

Mark Twain said in a speech, August 14, 1884, "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." This is often called "Greener's Law", ascribed to William Greener. Congressman Charles Brown also is known for borrowing the term, something politicians seem to have over-applied in their excessive fear from the political correctness police, aka pundits. I first heard it when I was 16 years old from a man who owned a newspaper.

As a writer, I came to understand why thes saying holds true. While most people might think that the reason not to argue with people who buy ink by the barrel is because they can outpublish you, that's not the biggest reason.

People who go through ink by the barrel are good with words because they practice using them so much. Writers and speakers know the effects their words have when shared publicly. Inkers are wordsmiths.

Winston Churchill was quick with wit because he sat in bed from 8:30 am until 1:30 pm at the start of every day, working on his WWII speeches—one hour of preparation for every minute of a speech. So, when his wife said that his dismissal was a blessing in disguise, he didn't have to brainstorm his retort, "If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised."

I was raised by Winstonian parents. My classmates often didn't understand the words I used. It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that someone finally explained that most families just didn't talk that way around their dinner tables. One example was my mother's review after watching the first two seasons of The Office—"It's too true to be good," she said with a groan.

We read authors for their provocative words. Without good words, no one would read them. Before the digital era, proof of being a good writer was being published. For the press agents, it was the ID badge issued by the local press. Now, with social media—and especially since the media Establishment is entrenched more now than ever—an author's credibility is seen in downloads and "shares".

Writers must have good ideas, by definition. And in a world full of bull nonsense, it's difficult to have good ideas and not be angry. An informed writer worth reading is an angry writer by definition. Wordsmiths are naturally punchy.

That doesn't mean writers can't be optimistic and loving nor does it mean they need to be hateful or overly-serious. It doesn't mean that we can't share the love of the same Jesus who cleansed the temple. But, as Howard Beale said, "First, you've got to get mad!"

Why do I frown on my ID badge? It started with the 2014 protests in Taipei.

The Sunflower students had taken over their national legislature—something "blood and violence" American bureaucrats couldn't comprehend in their reviews. But it all makes sense with the simple understanding that older and younger generations of Taiwan don't hate each other.

Had the police bloodied the protestors, the next time the protestors would bloody the police and still get what they wanted. Taiwan's culture is different from the gun-carrying USA, which got its cowboy heritage from the Wild West days. Back then, there wasn't a police station every kilometer or every fifth block. Pioneers had to defend themselves and measure distances in miles and how many days it took to travel by horseback or wagon. Guns started American culture and they can't be purged from it. Russians couldn't accept democracy just as Americans can't accept being disarmed. We're all different.

In America and a few others, gun-carrying States and cities have less crime because strength has a deescalating nature. Strength holds criminal minds in check through fear, since that's all most criminals understand. This is similar to how big dogs are less likely to feel threatened than little dogs. Strength makes people polite.

But there is a difference between carrying a gun and taking it out just because someone gave you a dirty look—or took over a legislature accused of engaging in treason. Many Americans, especially the Christians, still believe that stepping up threats will make other's stand down. They think that escalating a situation won't escalate the situation. If it weren't for this insanity being nation-wide, it would be certifiably clinical.

An armed society is documented to be a polite society and that politeness keeps the peace. Not all cultures need guns to be "armed" for politeness. Taiwanese arm themselves with social media—words. Asians are ink smiths. They are polite as they are peaceful and strong.

In over 6 decades, China has not been able to take Taiwan and there has been no blood spilled. If the blood ever spills, it will spill more than the ink because it would only escalate. In their rational to deescalate via escalation, Beijing has the same certifiable insanity as many Americans. The Taiwanese are wise to this and wanted strength in order to end Beijing's escalating bullying—they wanted to end their government's weak concessions and secret talks with China. That's why two hundred took over their nation's legislature in a single night.

The Legislature's Speaker, Wang Jin-ping, then in his 70's, couldn't bring himself to expel college students with a bloody crackdown. Instead, he promised what he knew the nation wanted anyway in turn for the students to leave peacefully. He promised a system of transparency before making any more international agreements. Some police beat students at the Premiere's office, under different governance. However, the students at the legislature clean-up after themselves, left on their own, Wang kept his career in politics, and the Premiere resigned within a year.

As an American, this went against the intuition of my own culture. About a week before the students announced they would leave, I wanted to see the occupancy first hand. I went to Taiwan to learn. Seeing those students was an opportunity for just that.

When I arrived in Taipei, there was plenty to see on the street. One of their security supervisors asked me if I wanted to go inside, but then added that he couldn't get me in without a press ID. That was when it began. I left the next day.

When I got home, I researched the history of press ID badges. Originally, people employed by the local printing press had a proven interest in current events. So, officials of governments and local organizations would give the press special permissions so information could easily be shared with the public.

The recent trend, in the wake of the digital age, is for independent bloggers to make their own laminated cards with some long-winded statement about the First Amendment and free speech. Actually, this approach makes them certifiably ordinary. An ID badge should link the blogger to his blog, not just ramble on about how free speech ostensibly grants access to restricted locations. The two are related, but not the same.

Restricted access is more likely to open up to those who have large audiences. This isn't favoritism; it's a way to spread more information with less congestion. Backstage is already busy enough.

As I familiarized myself with the information on company-issued press ID badges, I noticed that the more serious writers frowned in their ID photos. Photo frowning is allowable since it's not a legal ID, which an authority will grant separately after seeing the ID issued by the publisher the journalist is associated with. So, I practiced my frown, made an ID badge that linked to a thousand-hit-per-day blog where I was syndicated, and headed back to Taipei. One look at my angry ID from the security supervisor on duty and the police let me inside.

Writers use ink by the barrel. They are of the type of people you don't want to pick a fight with. Pushovers smile, which may be why donors prefer to give money to politicians who smile. Did I get in because of my frown? Probably not. To me, frowning just seemed proper.

That experience taught me that writers are angry by definition—and that makes them "right" in the eyes of some, which is why they are rightfully called "writers". Puns aside, my mother wasn't happy with the new "angry" photo. My mother doesn't buy ink by the barrel, so I can win arguments with her—at least half of the time.

In early photography, people posed with a serious, blank face. These days, we pose with the "Sears smile" used by models in clothing catalogues. But, posed expressions are all posed. Seeing the funny side of life, I smirk in my pictures, though I keep the scowl for my "press" ID. I think the smirk will catch on. If you object, please argue.
**Eras within History**

Publishing and info sourcing relates directly to history—directly. I chose "Times" as the type of periodical to remind readers and contributors to view the current day in the larger scope of millennia. So, my publishing goals are not only about current events; I aim to identify our place in history.

So, naturally, the Pacific Daily Times reflects a philosophy about the current era of history. It's not just "daily"; it's "Pacific". And, that has ramifications of its own.

Many suggest that we are in the "post-modern" era, which began with Christendom's shattering after the first and second World Wars. For almost two millennia, the West held a myth that a Sunday morning approach to knowing Jesus could never fall. Hitler debunked that myth. Rather than reevaluating the clerical system—the man-made construct that never stood a chance of survival—Europe reevaluated Truth itself.

While the West began a departure from Jesus, the Bible, and the concept of absolute Truth, we continued the myth that believing Jesus required clergy and a weekly gathering, preferably on Sunday. Whether or not Jesus was real, people expected his followers to gather on Sunday. Since Sunday shattered, so did the West's view of Jesus. Christendom collapsed. This was the birth of Postmodernity—which would not have been possible without an Establishment governing Christian fellowship.

Postmodernism started in Europe just after WWII and only came to North America in the late 20th century, mainly through the Baby Boomers. Like many trends, it didn't penetrate the Church until a generation later at the turn of the millennium. So, when Postmodernism came to the Church two generations after it began in Europe, it was largely known as the "Emergent Church". Some called it a movement, but I quickly identified it as a "discussion". Brian McLaren, I soon learned, called it a "conversation". He was right, at least, about two things: 1. the conversational nature of EC and 2. an effective way to reach people is through a story.

The problem with Postmodernism in the American Church was that everyone thought of it as a "news flash", when, actually, most of the topics had already been addressed. Ironically, when the American Boomer's children (Generation Y, mainly born after 1978) walked out on Jesus, they did so in the name of "education", "relevance", and "information"—even though most of them cited reasons that were silent on the answers to Postmodernism, already given decades before.

European Bible teachers had already rebutted and debunked Postmodernity and Darwinism with logic, basic teaching on the different genres of Biblical literature, and archeology. Of course, the Postmodernist bullhorns in the Establishments of education, media, and, of course, Sunday morning didn't promulgate those rebuttals very well. Those that did often served to bolster the public's superstition that the Establishment's sandy foundation was the solution, rather than the cause of Christendom's wreckage that led to Postmodernism in the first place.

One of the more recent arguments I've heard trying to "debunk" belief in Jesus was: If you never read the Bible, you'll think it contradicts itself; if you read part of it, you'll become a Christian; if you read all of it, you'll become an Atheist. That's cute. So, what about that person who reads "all of it"? Did he forget the part at the beginning of Joshua that, if you read the Bible every day and do it that it will revolutionize your life? That last part would be more accurate if it said, "if you skim all of it, without pressing until you understand it, you'll have the excuse you need to believe whatever you already wanted to believe anyway."

Most arguments about most of our problems mostly seem new to people who mostly don't know history.

There are many good apples, though. The Evolution Handbook is a near comprehensive bibliography debunking the myth of the "Old Earth", largely responsible for the joke of "Creation by Evolution". It cites sources that existed long before it was compiled. Earth just isn't that old and much in the Establishment claiming so is documented to be outright made-up. Francis Schaffer and CS Lewis still have the best philosophical-logical answers to Postmodernism to this day, on which today's Apologeticists like Ravi Zacharias, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Albert Mohler spring from.

But the most important weakness of Postmodernism was almost completely unaddressed in Europe and North America. While the West reconsidered the Bible's accuracy and even Truth itself, it clung to the assumption that Jesus requires trained clergy—the basis for Christian fellowship's unnecessary dependence on an Establishment. A large sector during the EC phase (including many in EC, plus many rejecting EC) that had left Sunday morning were slandered by the clergy, who claimed that, "to leave Sunday morning is to leave Jesus." So, that's what they did.

Few Christian leaders ever reached out to the "churchless Christian" sector in hopes that, in leaving Sunday morning, they wouldn't also leave Jesus. That attempt might put the clergy out of work. So, it was never going to happen, at least not with Baby Boomers at the pulpit. EC pastors, however, managed to keep people attending Sunday morning, who later walked-out on Jesus rather than Sunday morning.

The Establishment made sure that Sunday morning survived the EC phase better than belief in Jesus did. What might Uncle Screwtape have had to say about that? We'll never know because The Screwtape Letters were penned long before EC.

Interestingly enough, while Postmodernity was birthing in Europe, Watchman Nee was addressing the problem of the clerical system in China, which would eventually give birth to the ideas that paved the way for various forms of the Chinese Church today.

(The two-million strong fellowship that exists as a monument to Nee sprouted its own Establishment in the soils of an us-versus-them critique of 'the denominational sector' and the regular sale of books and literature, both of which were bolstered by Lee's rhetoric akin to Mormon teaching, namely that 'man shall become God'—a statement that makes some sense in Mandarin, but is unacceptable in English. But, I address those particulars elsewhere. It suffices to say here that none of those dependencies of their Establishment nature existed under Watchman Nee's watch.)

Nee described an organic, non-clerical, "hyper-Biblical" model of Church administration in Church Affairs. He also wrote and published the "three selfs" that eventually became the concept of the "Three Self Church" approved by the Communist government: Self-funded, self-administered, self-propagated. China didn't want any influence from the diseased Western Church. Neither did Nee. This is where Communists and Christians in China agree. The result was the fastest growing Church in the world—and it didn't just exist within Nee's network, which only makes up about 10% of the underground Church of China.

So, all the "thought-provoking questions" presented by Postmodernity have already been answered and published—including the problems that entail from the sandy foundation of the clerical-centric Establishment's wreckage from which Postmodernism was birthed. Again, WWI&II did not cast doubt on Jesus directly, but by proxy of the extra-Biblical presuppositions on which the Sunday morning Establishment depended.

All of those pretentions of Postmodernism have already been debunked in books printed long before Generation Y was born. So, it would be quasi-plagiarism for the Times to pretend to address these topics. As an editor, I avoid them.

Personally, I'm familiar with the logic, literature genre, and evidence. I have won near-impossible debates. I tried to compile my views in Memoirs of Ophannin, through a 10,000 year realistic fiction anthology of Angelic and Human history. So, when those questions come up with personal friends, I usually give concise answers, then say, "If you're really serious about discussing Postmodernity, you need to read Lewis before you claim to have a new idea." So many people follow the crowd, thinking they have original ideas when they're just parroting their teachers who couldn't report the whole truth because they never cared to investigate it at the local library.

The Sunday morning version of Jesus is, clearly, another parroted script, just like American Postmodernity. But non-Establishment, individual belief in the Bible is the basis for original ideas in our time as in any time: How do we apply the Bible to this day? We should ask the same question every 24 hours. Establishments can't make every day new. That's part of what it means to have "Daily" as the Times' middle name.

Postmodernity was already phasing-out while it was hitting the North American Church in the form of the "Emergent" discussion—which fizzled and popped after a few books were sold and Rob Bell resigned. "Emergers" didn't vanish, but they scattered and kept their rhetoric while abandoning their ideas in practice—just like their Hippie parents did when they slipped out the back door, slipped on a tie, left their bankrupt communes, and quietly went to work. History stays with us, either by reading it or repeating it. The mistake of EC was that they didn't recognize Postmodernism as last century's newspaper.
**Five Millennial Movement Trends**

What is really going on in the Church? This is easier to understand when considering that there were five main movements converging at the time:

1. Research-based, Smallgroup-structured Mega Church

This was initiated by Dr. Bilezikian and Bill Hybels in 1975 when they started Willow Creek. Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church came later, but made the movement popular. Hybels and "Dr. B" had a concept called "seeker-sensitive", which, originally, made sure that Christian teaching could be understandable to people who hadn't grown up attending Sunday morning. In this way, it was somewhat anti-Establishment, which was why the Establishment slandered it so, then later loved it so—changing as much as the Hippie generation that managed that Christian Establishment at the time.

The seeker-sensitive model used normal words, avoided Evangelical jargon, and molded the "doing" of local church strategy into a qualitative-quantitative research-based science—rather than assumption-based strategy that had been used by the Establishment for so long.

One of the more famous stories from this was Hybels's survey in a Chicago suburb that found the number one reason people wouldn't attend Sunday morning was the greeter at the door. Hybels did this as a way to "listen" and get a fresh perspective. He wanted to remove the problem-causing Sunday habits that were not taught in the Bible. And, again, he preached with small words. As this seeker-sensitive model caught on in North America, two problems resulted.

The first problem was from the Establishment—long-winded professor types—the old guard, who didn't know how to talk about Jesus using normal words. Bill was describing Jesus in a way that non-Christians could understand. So, the professorate club misinterpreted this as "watering down" the Bible.

The unintended consequence was, when the old guard criticized Willow for ostensibly "watering down truth", many in America did just that. It became a self-perpetuating critique. Both the critiques and the copycats misunderstood Hybels: The only thing Bill watered down was the thick vocabulary that had acted as a veil between Jesus and the laity.

The vocabulary issue is bigger than it may seem. A friend in college once told me his professor father's perspective, that there are "five doors" of language complexity, from early speaking years to post doc academics. "You can only go back two doors," he said. While I politely disagree with my good friend and his respected father, his thinking accurately represents the professorate culture in "Establishment" Christian America.

The problem with that thinking is that CS Lewis transcended all five doors. He wrote Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia, but also Letters to Children where he kept a record of his personal responses to fan mail from kids. How can Christians who respect CS Lewis believe that we can only preach using words that are hard for normal people to understand? The answer, of course, is: The Establishment is how we believe that way.

Lewis already answered the problems that surfaced when Postmodernity came to the American Church, even the issue of seeker-sensitivity: The professorate didn't have better command of English. They merely exchanged normal words for abnormal words. They didn't grow their range of communication—they shifted it. They were less able to connect to the world that needed help learning the Bible. So, they, and their students who graduated to serve as Christian leaders, thought that Bill had smaller ideas when, actually, like Lewis, Bill had bigger ideas with smaller words. They both answered Postmodernity by talking to children—and the Establishment couldn't understand them.

By properly interpreting America's misunderstanding over Bill's big idea—simple vocabulary messages—we see that many in America don't even know what the Bible preaches because Christian leaders don't have good command of the English language. They use big words when they don't need to. Usually they have big hearts with small audiences; and small vocabularies with a bias for big words. More people will believe Jesus if American Christians expand their English, not merely shift it. That's why, at the Times, I emphasize the use of style guides with lax standards for tone and preference for brevity. It's difficult to teach a sleeping audience.

The second misunderstanding about Bill Hybels was with his research-based "seeker-sensitive" model. This did relate to using small words in sermons, but mainly emphasized the academic diligence that is necessary to know how to work with people. Eventually, this would affect the "Relevant" sector of the EC discussion, largely because Bill's surveys were, essentially, about avoiding irrelevance.

The American Church saw his survey research and, like I address in Innovate, forgot to interpret the research data. Bill and Dr. B looked at the surveys and discussed how to relate the truth of the Bible to the people whom they surveyed. But the so-called "seeker-sensitive" copycat trend in America used surveys for two purposes, either: a. using a survey as an excuse to pretend to listen before preaching, never actually reviewing the survey data, AKA "survey evangelism" #delphiTechnique; or b. using the survey data to implement directly into their ministry strategy, basically allowing those who don't know what the Bible says to dictate how the Bible should be taught, applying survey data "as is" and without proper interpretation.

The problem with purpose a. was that preaching invalidates the survey results, so those were surveys in name only. The problem with purpose b. was that uninterpreted market data usually destroys an organization when applied "as is". Both of these left a bad taste in the mouth of America over the term "seeker-sensitive" when, actually, what most people thought of as "seeker-sensitive" was nothing at all what was intended by those who introduced the term.

Hybels's work with Dr. B set many things in motion, unsettled the status quo, and sparked much needed discussion. But there were other participants in the Research movement.

There was another misunderstanding that could be included, but I'll only address it briefly: Lordship v Grace. This is a debate that began among Bible Churches between Zane Hodges and John MacArthur, but spilled into Charismatic and Pentecostal circles, particularly following EC, which led to Charismatic/Pentecostal exodus, which increased cross-denominational communication. That was when many young Christians got to know each other during the Emergent Church discussion, for which the territorial Establishment left the younger generation ill prepared and largely informed by "straw men". I generally regard both sides of the debate to be technically correct, while ethically errant in their dependency on "straw men" in their contentions—demonstrated in how quickly young Charismatics and Pentecostals believed in Grace Theology at first exposure. I took this up with my own local leaders in the early days, who promptly ignored my warnings. While I address this in other writings, their main different emphasis is in preaching rhetoric they want to hear—more of either Jesus's "Lordship" or Jesus's "Grace". It's not a semantic difference, nor a theological difference, but a preferred rhetorical emphasis difference. This is the method I use to semi-accurately predict whether a Christian considers himself in one camp or the other. Since it is a debate about "preferred rhetorical emphasis", people from both camps will often think that the same preacher is in their own camp! Likewise, people from both camps may reject a preacher as being from "the other camp". In truth, the preacher may not consider himself in either camp, Lordship or Grace. Preachers like Hybels, Bickle, and Bell (in his earlier years) would address the same topics that Lordship and Grace preachers like to banter about. Both camps have the same goal, which is to find the balance between "Grace and Works (Lordship)". The key, as I have found, to dress their topic well is to emphasize "God's love in giving us practical rules that are rooted in wisdom". In my opinion, Bickle articulates this most thoroughly, Hybels does somewhat well, but Rob fizzled out when it came time to talk about how love, practicality, and wisdom depend on Substitutionary Atonement, which is a separate discussion. The third area where Hybels was misunderstood is where Lordship folk did what they do with many who have balanced rhetoric, which they consider out of balance. He was misunderstood as preaching "cheap grace" or "lawlessness" (sin doesn't harm us because Jesus forgives), something not affiliated with Grace teaching, but thought to be by the Lordship camp. Likewise, many in the Grace camp mislabeled Bickle as being "legalistic" (God's laws don't need a wise explanation, those who follow rules can behave like elites who 'have arrived' when they are around other people, and these 'elites' we] can tell themselves that there is nothing more for them [us] to improve on in their [our] relationship with God, hence, all that 'Holy Spirit' talk is just a way of making other people feel bad). Grace proponents tend to consider Lordship as "legalism". While Grace rhetoric can lead to "lawlessness" as credible leaders in Resurrection Life Church circles have claimed, and Lordship rhetoric can lead to "legalism" (or depression as Frank B. Minirth published about in 1993, [Psychological Effects of Lordship Salvation), neither Grace nor Lordship teachers openly seek either of these results. I won't say more on this here.

During the Willow Creek years, the Charismatic "Latter Reign" sectors saw Resurrection Life Church develop a very effective system, almost like franchising. Duane VanDerKlok, in Grandville, Michigan, in the same city as Rob Bell at Mars Hill, found a way to deliver a "soft" Charismatic culture to the extreme-calm White Dutch culture of West Central Michigan. This was a similar Research movement on the other side of the Spirit-focused / Bible-focused divide.

While Res Life was starting a quasi-denomination with more authority structures and frequent swapping of staff, Hybels formed Willow Creek Association, which more or less offered membership for education and materials. WCA had no control over member organizations. WCA was the Bible-Church Research movement, while Res Life was a big player among Charismatics and, usually by "stealing sheep", Pentecostals. But Assembly of God also had their Research models. All of them adopted some form of smallgroup structure.

2. Relevance

This largely stemmed from the research and fresh perspectives throughout the Church, spanning denominations. But it went farther and, for about ten years, much of the American Church became somewhat of a think tank. What should we do with hymns? How does multimedia relate to regular gatherings, not just special performances? What topics and Bible passages should sermons address? What should Christians say about politics and the environment? Some of the more famous publications came from Relevant Magazine and Donald Miller.

This could easily be confused with some of what Willow Creek did. However, Willow was more concerned with the research that accurately informed the working definition of "how to be relevant". The "Relevant" movement more or less followed blogs that had high readership rankings among Mars Hill wannabe's.

Moreover, the "Relevant" movement as a whole was more of a genre largely fueled by the Christian publishing Establishment, which was taking its P's and Q's from trends later in the game, rather than researching the reasons for those trends before they were widely known. Had the Christian publishing Establishment caught on to the coming trends that Willow Creek had already foreseen in its controversial, early days, Willow Creek might not have had the space in the market—or the need—to create its own publishing label.

"Relevance" was a late-game movement within the Christian publishing Establishment as the old guard struggled to keep its own "marketable relevance" among Christian readers who were no longer interested in Sunday morning as usual. It wasn't helping Christians stay "relevant" to the world, it was the Establishment marketing itself as "Relevant" to Christian readers. It responded during a shift crisis to what it failed to foresee. It was a publishing movement that was read throughout the Church; it was not a Church-wide movement in itself. And it had "uncreative management Establishment struggling to preserve control" written all over it. It made lots of money, but didn't help with one blessed thing.

The need to be relevant was more of an assumption or beginning goal for Willow, while "Relevance" later became a quest and discussion itself throughout much of the rest of the American Church after Willow Creek's "Research" movement had applied Relevance accurately through their Research.

The Research movement generally emphasized the need to be relevant in general, without substantially addressing the need for Research and proper interpretation of the data. It was somewhat assumptive in what it meant to have "Relevance". Though Relevance started in the publishing world, they didn't invent the word nor did they keep it. As movements, Relevance began in the publishing Establishment as it adapted to the Emergent Church discussion, which came after Research began in the Willow Creek experiment, where a local church adapted to escape the Christian Establishment's irrelevance.

Both movements existed as ideas and practices before they ever became movements per se. They became "movements" as they were applied to the routine practices of the local church. They both spread well-beyond their movement origins, just as both were conflated and misunderstood in the view of the general public.

Most Christians didn't know that Research and Relevance were two separate movements happening at about the same time. They just thought it was all Emergent Church, which the public also conflated with the Prayer movement, which we'll look at fifthly.

Bono's One Campaign trended among Christians because it was seen as relevant in and of itself, without needing further explanation. That was more of a "duh" moment, while the Research movement might have spent more time targeting a feasible objective. Research would have used an academic approach to make sure that the proposed solutions to the world's problems were helping the right countries with the right needs and in the right way. "We don't want to get it wrong," might have been a main idea of Research. Relevance tried to "help Africa" without trying to understand Africa first—which is typical of "compassion" campaigns in media. Again, Relevance was a movement that began in mass media, not grass roots.

Relevance emphasized more compassion and the basic need to listen, which were much needed lessons in the Church at that time. Of course, the Relevance movement was terrible at listening. It was more concerned about talking about listening so readers would think that it wanted to listen to them, but at least it talked about listening. It was also concerned about tone of voice, musical and artistic style, and new topics in Christian preaching. Without at least some benefit to readers the movement wouldn't have been solvent, publishers wouldn't have made any money, and the movement would likely never have happened. (Don't get me started on tone of voice.)

Arguably, the non-emphasis of Research within the Relevance movement contributed to patronizing and superstitious attitudes where compassion was concerned. All that treatment of "Africa as one country" displayed the lack of Research within the Relevance movement. Relevance and Research movements were related, but should not be confused as they have been.

I won't expand on this here. But I will add that Obama was elected when the Relevance movement was at its peak. As an early candidate, he even made the front page of Relevant Magazine. Obama's election was one unintended consequence of many that trailed the Relevant movement. And, for the movement, his election may have unintentionally cued the curtain.

3. Renaissance

Most of the Emergent Church critics don't know this, but Rob Bell started as a renaissance preacher. My RA in college attended Mars and would tell us about it at floor meetings in our dorm. At Moody, I was learning about Mars Hill long before the publishing Establishment even saw it on the radar, let alone cared.

During the five years of Mars Hill's substantial growth, Bell was preaching from Leviticus. This continued even into Bell's 2003 messages. Rob would spend 40 minutes explaining Hebrew or Greek words, historical context, then he would simply read a couple Bible verses and the room went silent. And, that actually makes sense from a homiletics perspective. The Bible's original audiences didn't need expository preaching; they were the historical context. So, they just read the Bible and it had far more power for them than the Robinsonian preachers do today—as powerful as the Robinsonians are. Rob's Leviticus series helped bring today's audience up to speed so that the Bible would speak for itself.

This emphasis on historical context was, of course, misinterpreted by the professorate who, once again, didn't take the time to examine what Rob was doing. The researchers didn't research. "Don't let historical context impose too much meaning on the Bible," they would say.

In truth, 40 minutes is insufficient. The original Bible audience lived that historical context 24-7. Bell started with a thorough review of the historical situation, complete with dictionary references and archeological photographs. Already having contextual background, Scripture just makes more sense.

However, his historical preaching model faded out when Bell began to release his "nooma" videos, and when he became infamous for a separate set of reasons after Velvet Elvis was published. Still, there was a significant move of the Holy Spirit in that ten year window at the turn of the millennium.

The whole Body of Christ was experiencing a Renaissance. Many preachers were doing an "old testament survey" series, including Willow Creek. Walk Through the Bible from Wilkinson was at its peak. There seemed to be no central source of the Renaissance. It seemed to be a general move of the Holy Spirit. While Bell was but one part of the movement, sermons from his early years, during Mars Hill's most noteworthy growth, were one of the best examples of a Church-wide Bible Renaissance.

Another part of the Renaissance was seen during the Promise Keepers revival, which, as usual, was drastically misreported. This wasn't so much a Biblical Renaissance as it was about family structure and what it meant to be a husband and father. I won't answer those questions here. My point is that those questions were being asked, which is part of a Renaissance.

There were other Renaissance aspects as well, including preaching and missions history over the previous century. Today the Renaissance has affected politics, resulting in the Tea Party movement, the name itself being from history. The Renaissance first seen in the Church, now seen in politics, is evidence that the Church is, unlike with Postmodernity, starting to take the lead over culture and politics in America.

This does not mean that the United States will adopt Jesus as the State God, but that, rather than non-Christians having political ideas adopted by Christians and non-Christians, the Christians will soon have the political ideas adopted by both Christians and non-Christians. This is because Christians will have ideas worth adopting.

4. Postmodernism in the Church

Two of the best examples of Postmodernism in the Church would be Pope John Paul III and Brian McLaren. Other examples were "Creation by Evolution" and, politically, "Green Conservatives". (Man-made global warming's myth vs magnetic-based solar-system-wide climate destabilization is another discussion for daily weather at the Times.) The idea that "Christians can care for the environment" hit about the same time as Bono's One Campaign. Rob Bell and others jumped on the bandwagon, but this was a larger swing withing the Church.

Christians were becoming aware of practical needs and activities outside their stained-glass windowed sanctuaries. Interestingly, this phase hit during the "Relevance" era, when Bill Hybels's kids—and the kids of those who founded Willow's ministry from 1975—were in college. A generation had been raised with the idea that we should pay attention to the world around us.

As the Church was becoming "relevant" to the world, attempting to be more "in the world and less of it", there were many misunderstandings. A Christian subculture emerged. Jars of Clay was popular. Michael W. Smith and DC Talk—after Petra and Carmen from the early years—had finished revolutionizing Christian music production. Christianity was a highly profitable business platform on which Relevant Magazine was able to launch.

While the Church learned many new truths and had great new ideas, it also ingested many bad ideas. The old guard resisted everything. Young blood swallowed everything. Few people discerned between the good and the bad from both past and present. The only question that mattered for any generation was "newness". Ironically, Postmodernism's fad nature came at about the same time as the Renaissance, which is somewhat of a contradiction. But, history is full of irony.

Last I heard about Brian McLaren from an editor at Zondervan, he was being called out on the floor because his ideas seemed more and more "out of bounds". This came after many in the Church gladly swallowed those ideas whole. The Postmodern influence during the last two decades was the "boo" in the "yeah-boo" of our changing times.

5. Prayer and Worship Movement

Two big prayer-worship players are Hillsong in Sidney, Australia and the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri. Hillsong had much to do with excellence and heart, while IHOPKC introduced a philosophy: On the earth as already and always will be in Heaven.

While Hillsong music took a big bite out of Marinatha's share in the music market, "worship" became a profitable music genre that even non-religious consumers would purchase. IHOPKC, however, focused on the science of working out music team structure so that prayer could mingle with worship and continue 24-7, like in David's Tabernacle, Solomon's Temple, and the New Jerusalem.

The prayer movement that began in the 80's, along with the Promise Keeper's revival in the mid 90's, brought a huge change to the Church. Barna's own research, another decade later, observed Christians who left Sunday morning in order to get closer to Jesus. The Christian Research Journal examined and retracted CRI's critique of the non-clerical methods of the Nee movement in 2009, vol. 32 no. 6 "We Were Wrong".

The Prayer and Worship movement began about the same time as the Research movement. But both of these were ground-breaking and unintentionally, yet politely anti-Establishment in some of their values. EC, and Relevance that trailed, were more of the nominal-Christian Establishment's way of adapting to survive the unsettling dedication of the Prayer and Research movements without having to go though fundamental change. In Relevance, the pastor's job remained; in Prayer and Research, it didn't necessarily.

While the Relevance and Research have been in the spotlight, the Prayer and Worship movement is trending worldwide and, based on Biblical teaching, it will likely be the only of these five topics that will not expire.

While Relevance will fade, Postmodernity faded before it got here and EC's fate is tied between both. By contrast, Research and Renaissance pointed to Prayer. Renaissance movements are to be expected from time to time. My point here is that both Prayer and Research are relatively recent and independent movements and they developed about the same time as the Renaissance.
**Emergent Church**

In the midst of the five converging millennial movements, the Emergent Church was more or less an exodus of people who didn't really belong in the Church. Simply leaving might have been easier, but they couldn't bring themselves to do that. They still had their parents' thinking rather than their own. They didn't know what to believe, if anything at all. So, they had to go through some drama and provide long explanations before they left a place they never should have been in the first place.

Many people claimed to believe Jesus in the 1990's, but that was only because their parents taught them to be good parrots rather than independent thinkers. Kids who thought independently would probably need to quit attending on Sunday morning. Establishments usually celebrate parrots and punish thinkers. Though youth leaders did celebrate and support true Christians, they did not challenge them as "the outside" world would. So, for the coming Postmodern and EC teachers, youth of the 1990's would be easy game.

The risk of "the outside" brought fear that was not addressed directly, but silently. Youth leaders would teach parents how to "raise Christian kids" when those methods really surmounted to indoctrination. Of course, with the Research movement, indoctrination wasn't new in Church history, but it was more intentional and scientific. Christian parents felt something coming. But, they didn't know what to do about it.

When Postmodernity hit the Church, the indoctrination failed to hold up. Many people left the Church and authors like Rob Bell and Donald Miller were blamed. Don Carson, rather than merely blaming the writers, observed that this exodus had valuable lessons for the Church.

Ultimately, the Emergent Church discussion was Postmodernity's way of pretending to get swept up in the Prayer and Worship movement, without actually giving a care. That's why the "Emergent Church" branding stuck so well, it was a "changeless feel-good".

EC critics, however, never cared to understand EC or the Relevant publishing movement. With "Hillsong" and "IHOP" (at the time before a lawsuit settlement resulted in 'IHOPKC') becoming household terms, the Research movement within the Establishment didn't make much distinction between the Relevance and Prayer movements. All change was equally feared and the Establishment stiffened, becoming even more brittle.

I foresaw a problem with Rob Bell after his first nooma video release. "Rain" addressed the Problem of Evil, but "victory through pain" was not Rob's message; his message was affection: The pain brought him and his son close, emotionally. This theme of "victory through pain" has the proper name "Substitutionaty Atonement", which is the $64,000 term that means Jesus died on the Cross as our "substitute" and , therefore, had "victory through the suffering". Rob never taught on that. He avoided it perfectly.

While many Bible teachers felt that Rob had a doctrinal problem, no one could put their fingers on it. I argue this was because no one spent the time to understand Rob before critiquing him, a common denominational-American habit. Most Christians don't even know each other. As I mentioned previously, the researchers did not research.

Rob, being in Grandville, was in my back yard. I watched members of my youth group leave their own congregation to attend Mars Hill before walking out on Jesus altogether. I remember the conversations and what the local community said about Rob.

In terms of the local church of Michigan, he is like a distant cousin I never met. I know of him elsewhere through the grapevine. And, I personally handed him a one-page letter, kindly begging him to address the topic of "Substitutionary Atonement". As a trained Bible student from Wheaton, Rob knows that topic well.

Though I am one of the few qualified to critique Rob publicly, I won't because I know enough about him to know better. The only way to address Rob is face to face. Though he has a public ministry, he is a very private, introverted man.

Anyone who listened to Rob in order to understand him—not just visit once or twice, not to critique—could have seen Rob's teaching gap. His teaching always had a loud silence; it was the shape of the Cross. For some reason known only to Rob, he could not bring himself to teach that Jesus was our rightful substitute in his death on the Cross.

Rob's critics never seemed to pick up on this, however. The old guard gave their usual slap-face responses to Rob's non-answers, which only emboldened both sides—the Establishment and the exodus that the Emergent Church would eventually morph into. Actually, while EC and Rob were traveling companions for a time, along with Donald Miller, they were always headed in different directions: EC to exit the Church, Rob to relook history, and Donald Miller to teach Christians to be relevant.

So, do we live in Postmodern times? No. Postmodernity expired when it first entered the Church, its deceptive eventuality having been accomplished. It quickly became EC, then the people who didn't have a genuine belief in Jesus left. The people who loved Jesus for reasons beyond their indoctrination sought something deeper than Sunday morning (George Barna's Revolution). And Sunday morning "business as usual" closed shop.

Fewer and fewer people want to rub their temples and say that "all truth is relative" anymore. Few are fascinated with the Bible-science-evidence movement of Modernism. Anymore, people just want to know how to make life work. Talk to an educated professor, doctor, lawyer, businessman, or writer—they all say the same thing, "Just skip to the conclusion and I can probably guess your reasons." That's where we are today and it is not Postmodern in the least.

With society largely wanting to "skip to the conclusion", and with the job market in such rough shape, the United States is loaded with entrepreneurs primed for action. We don't want to ask questions; we want to make money. We'll look at that in a few chapters.
**The Off-Center Zodiac**

Postmodernism's dilemma is somewhat similar to a problem with the Zodiac. I won't get into the philosophical and theological discussion surrounding the Zodiac, suffice to say that Noah likely had some version of his own Zodiac or alternative thereof. It also seems that the Zodiac story we know today was likely perverted from Noah's understanding of the constellations, having roots in Babylon and other "pyramid obelisk ziggurat sun god" religions (what I like to call the 'dollar bill cult' since the symbols are best depicted there). I don't base the idea of "Noah's Zodiac" on GIS (Gospel In the Stars) arguments alone, but on the Book of Enoch explaining the seasons in detail from view of the heavens while presuming that the audience would have deep interest in the stars.

Our birth months seem to have some predictability where personality is concerned. So, constellations should be interesting at least. Generally, I don't follow horoscopes and the Times doesn't publish horoscopes. Still, the Zodiac is a topic that any editor should be familiar with and have an opinion about.

The concept of having a Zodiac sign relates to which constellation is behind the sun when a baby is born. Throughout the year, stars rotate, showing a different set of constellations in the night sky. Just as it takes about a month for the moon to rotate and finish its cycle, the stars take about one year. The time it takes for the constellations to circle and return to the same place in our night sky is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 10 seconds. This is a "sidereal" year, measuring by the stars cycle.

A "tropical" year, however, measures the point of the sun at high noon. Throughout the year, the highest point of the sun on any day changes, making a figure 8 loop in the sky throughout the year. As it crosses the center of the figure 8, these are the Autumnal and Spring equinoxes, the high and low points are the Summer and Winter solstices. The time it takes for the sun to make one full loop is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. This is one "tropical" year.

To keep our months in tune with the seasons, Western society generally follows the tropical calendar. This means that, every year, the stars become 20 minutes and 24 seconds more out of sync with our Western calendar. In other words, while Virgo would have been behind the sun when a baby was born in early September three thousand years ago, today, the constellation is Leo. When I was born August 31, Leo was behind the sun, not Virgo.

Astronomer Parke Kunkle proposed the following new Zodiac schedule, suggesting a 13th sign of Ophiuchus because it occurs behind the sun for about two weeks:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16  
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11  
Pisces: March 11-April 18  
Aries: April 18-May 13  
Taurus: May 13-June 21  
Gemini: June 21-July 20  
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10  
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16  
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30  
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23  
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29  
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17  
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20

Remember, about every 13 years, the stars will get about one day behind in the Western calendar. Kunkle's story hit the press in mid January 2011. By 2024, the above schedule will be wrong again.

As an editor, the confusing schedule itself is more important to me than anything else about the Zodiac. And, it demonstrates the Book of Enoch's explanation that, though the windows of the seasons are clear, their timing will always elude men. That's the biggest "takeaway" lesson of the Zodiac and our Western calendar.

As to the credibility of the signs in the stars as a personality indicator, this raises two controversies. Firstly, Christians tend to avoid Zodiac altogether. There, I defer to Thomas Aquinas's statement, "All truth is God's truth." I don't worship the stars just because I look at them. Nor do I worship Hippocrates merely because I consider personality types. Nor does math take the place of God in my life, as it did for the Pythagoreans, merely because I am a musician who uses Pythagoras's twelve-note scale. And, I certainly don't believe that the stars will reveal anything to us that their Creator chooses to conceal.

Secondly, people who follow the Zodiac believe that the signs have some level of accuracy where personality is concerned. So, I read up on Zodiac personalities and found that I fit the description of Leo much better than the traditional Virgo. Interestingly enough, many people who follow horoscopes ask me if I'm a Virgo. "You behave exactly like a Virgo," they say.

I have a different interpretation: The personality makeup many people have known as "Virgo" is actually typical of people born in late August and early September. It's not actually a description of Virgo, but the Zodiac crowd calls it that.

Some have argued in mainstream media that the Zodiac calendar follows the tropical calendar, not the sidereal calendar, which is absurd! I think that is merely the media defending its publications of the last five centuries. The Zodiac is based on the idea a constellation being behind the sun when one is born. That's "sidereal" calendar, not "tropical".

Following the tropical calendar would consider the position of the sun in the sky, not constellation behind the sun. The Zodiac calendar being about three thousand years behind horoscope schedules suggests that most horoscope reports were "bull". So, naturally, the publishers would want to defend themselves by continuing the confusion. This inaccuracy may account for many of the times horoscopes were wrong, not just about dates and signs, but about events. One Taiwanese professor argues that horoscopes are self-fulfilling prophecies, placeboes to whoever believes them.

Either way, personality-type enthusiasts can predict the month of someone's birth if they are familiar with the Zodiac. Being able to make accurate predictions is the publishing world's version of the academic and research world's obsession with long bibliographies. Foresight is its own form of notoriety. Why should a writer not be interested?

Not even knowing the sidereal schedule, Zodiac enthusiasts accurately predict a person's birth month, though they may label people with the wrong constellation. I argue that we often get the right ingredients with the wrong labels in many fields. My unintended goal in nearly all of my work in communication is to make sure labels don't lie. I didn't learn that from astronomy, but from high school chemistry.
**The Premillennial Era**

Many people today might say, "We live in a Postmodern society, therefore..." and then they make accurate observations about the times, though their observation has nothing to do with actual Postmodernity. Futurists talk about what Generation Y wants to buy, read, watch, and eat. They talk about habits and ways of thinking. While these things are true of our time, they are not Postmodern. As with the Zodiac, right ingredients, wrong labels.

We are at the threshold of two new millenniums: the new 2,000 AD millennium and (so I believe) the millennium of Jesus's reign on earth. Because we are at the threshold, I refer to it as "Premillennial". While many refer to people within the same timeframe as "Millennials", I use a different term for a few reasons. For one, "Millennials" have a narrower birth window while "Premillennial" extends to include everyone born while Gen Y is alive.

Two, the term "Millennial" is mostly used by Boomers and older Gen X pundits who like to use the label "post" rather than "pre". They are "post war" and "post modern" after all. While "Millennials" refers to people who graduated or were born "post" 2000, they would never share their own "post" label with anyone else. The "millennium" excites them enough. Just because they see the world that way doesn't mean that everyone does.

The Premillennial Era, or the "Threshold Era", is not to be confused with Premillennialism, the "escapist" idea that Christians will magically vanish before hard times come. (A Premillennialist believes the theological eschatological doctrine of Premillennialism, while Premillennials are part of the Premillennial Era's generation, starting with Gen Y.) The Bible never describes an absent Church during the time Jesus descends, but victorious Church who has victory over the greatest and most cunning of evil rulers in all history.

As I look at converging trends through the eyes of history, I believe that, if a "Premillennial" Rapture of the Church were going to take place, it should have already happened. This is another reason our historical period could be called the "Premillennial Era"—we are now in the time when the Rapture should be part of history past. I guess we all missed it, which means we have a lot of learning to do!

Sarcasm aside, our need to learn defines the current worldview situation better than anything. We are in a time when the world is having discussions similar to what "Premillennialists" speculated that "post-rapture" Christians and non-Christians would have had if their beliefs had been correct.

Another reason for the term "Premillennial Era" is that their generation mostly got its identity from those born before the turn of the millennium. 'Tis a useful term.
**In the Generation Jesus Returns**

While there was always a fringe group who believed they would live to see Jesus part the skies, the feeling of a coming Apocalypse is widespread. "Preppers" are increasing. Even for those who don't believe in Jesus return, the unusual increase in the belief of Jesus's imminent return is part of the current philosophical era. True or not, thinking about the times assumes that we are on the threshold of the pre-millennium of Jesus.

The Bible contains 150 chapters about the generation in which Jesus returns. This is more than any other generation that the Bible addresses, almost twice that of what the Bible says about the generation in which Jesus first came, even if including all chapters of the four gospels. These 150 chapters do not include the Book of Enoch, which states in the beginning that it was written for that generation. This is an argument why this reliable book should not be in the Old Testament, even though it is not a false writing as are 2, 3, and 4 Enoch.

God gave great priority in addressing that generation, even though it would not walk the earth for thousands of years. As each living generation seem to identify with that End Times generation more and more, using that generation as a target readership for an info source or another kind of audience is certainly marketable. The Times targets the Premillennial Era readership.

That generation is a generation that seriously evaluated their own times with the Bible, considering economics, politics, and their culture. I saw these themes naturally develop in my first podcast, which gave me the target topics: Bible, Business, Culture, Politics. As a reading audience, that generation is intelligent, well-informed, critically-thinking, challenging, and capable.

Even if that generation has not yet been born, writing as if writing to that generation would certainly pay respect to readers today. And it would only improve future prospects of business. Moreover, if God can have the writers of Scripture address that generation more than any other, then a small online periodical certainly wouldn't do wrong to address the same audience. If that generation comes later, they may be able to read what was written day to day.

The events of that generation will be dramatic and are worth writing about as they happen. There's no harm in warming-up. I believe that the demand is enough to go for it.

Even if Jesus does not return until centuries into the future, the current generation is beginning to ask what life will be like after Jesus lands in Jerusalem. The earth will likely be war-ravaged from the idiot dictator who came in the name of peace and tolerance, before collapsing like every fraud before him.

Many regions won't have any infrastructure left, but we will have the best of technology available from all history to help the rebuilding process. Many will be resurrected and able to perform miracles on a regular basis, while many will remain in their first bodies. What will the business system be like in a world with nearly unlimited knowledge of science and manufacturing, while, at the same time, no man will work for another man and everyone will drink from his own vineyard?

Many things will be different after Jesus lands. Jesus-minded thinkers are already looking at the threshold of Jesus's millennial reign, then look back through all of history in hopes of finding an informed, yet fresh, perspective of what the future holds and how we should be living now.

Of course, it is difficult to talk about Jesus's landing in Jerusalem without getting apocalyptic and all worked up about conspiracies. So, a few things should be said before looking more closely at the Premillennial Era.
**Kooks and Conspiracies**

Yes, there will always be political and economic corruption. Yes, the pyramid is still a religious symbol in the mind of some strange fanatics in the "Dollar Bill Cult" who dare not show their faces in public. Yes, there's always some Hollywood-worthy villain trying to take over the world. Yes, fractional reserve lending is arguably the cause of all the world's problems; Thomas Jefferson thought there were fewer evils in the world worse than central banking. And, yes, many people view secret societies of any kind pretty much as a cancer; the last thing anyone should want is a freemason to join an organization and start usurping it to ascend to his next degree. Han Fei-Tsu expressed that millennia ago. The Bible already addressed these things before Han.

This isn't "old" news. It's "ancient". And, "ancient" ain't newsworthy.

David, who dealt with one of the most wicked rulers, says not to worry about evil men, for they are violently overthrown (Psalms 37). Jesus told John that the "Synagogue of Satan" would come to repentance (Revelation 3). Christian kooks contradict the Bible in their worries. Atheist kooks contradict logic by not believing in the God whom their alleged conspirators are vainly attempting to over through. The Bible foretold evil's aspirations and already taught us that Jesus has the victory. So, kookery of any kind is a contradiction.

To anyone worried about any sort of evil "plot" or "conspiracy" or even someone who denies that wicked men meet in secret, yet still manages to complain about "corruption"—the only sober conclusion is that Jesus saw it coming and told us to trust him and not worry. Anything more or less is incomplete. People seek incomplete facts only if their main goal is to worry.

From the topic of conspiracy and kookery, we learn that the topic of "Jesus" can't be ignored, especially today, and particularly for anyone who wants to examine the times with sober eyes.
**Premillennial Era: The Pacific Worldview**

Today, we see a renaissance of technology. Young men want the most advanced smartphones, but prefer to shave with the safety razors of over 100 years ago.

Take house shutters as an example. Pre-modern would have shutters on most houses for safety and security. Modern home owners would have non-functioning shutters because it "looks right", while they thought safety would never be an issue once their generation reached adulthood. Post-modernists would have turned one of the shutters sideways and had the other one function, except that few Post-modernists could afford houses. Premillennials either want shutters that work or an Asian style house that works or not at all—whatever it is, it needs to function, and "retro" ain't bad.

Asia gets into another part of Premillennial thinking. While the West has a fascination with Asian comics, architecture, language, and tradition, Asia equally has a fascination with Western ideas and culture. Asia's Gen Y rejects the Shame culture of the past while Gen X is building high-tech infrastructure with Western dollars as fast as possible. (That bubble is ending as 2015 closes.) Then, there is also America's interest in the underground Church of China because of its remarkable growth that began with the Chinese version of Communism.

This mutual fascination between East and West should not be misinterpreted as a fad. It reflects a deeper hunger—that the different extremes of the world want to know each other. The Pacific Ocean is a large area to cross, but hardship strengthens the will and love finds a way. "Pacific" is not only an ocean, region, or culture; it is a worldview.

(I understand that using oceans to describe worldviews may be strange. Please humor me for a few paragraphs. This is part of how I distinguish events in our time. And, it may prove useful for you as well.)

If I were to contrast "Pacific" and "Atlantic" worldviews, I would say that "Atlantic" defines the old boys' club, the old money of America's east coast, political party Establishments, NATO, the EU, and the American Establishment's tendency to take cues from Europe.

The "Pacific" view, by contrast, sees that Europe was never able to unite as the States did. Moreover, the Pacific worldview sees that Europe failed to protect itself from Islam as its nations distracted themselves while playing footsie-footsie with each other. And it sees that the Middle East should not have become the "Meddled East", but that's what the Bush Dynasty made it. And, that also backfired.

The Atlantic worldview looks to the past and expects to see its best days. In that, it may be right. It hopes for Latin America to set the tempo for English America to march to. The Pacific worldview seeks to determine how nations teach each other as peers, not continental unions. The Atlantic worldview is older and, like the ocean, smaller. The Pacific is a bigger and deeper ocean, as well as a bigger, newer player in forming a wider worldview.

America's political Establishment explains the Atlantic worldview well. The Bush family has been fascinated with Spanish ever since the days of H. W. The aging GOP can't win the easiest of elections and gets much of its money from the east coast. Obama's "apology tour" of Europe was met with applause, while Japan's Abe wouldn't let him apologize for Nagasaki and Heroshima and China tried to boss him around. Reagan was Pacific-minded, hated by the Atlantic media, and Russia respected him as an enemy. Obama is Atlantic-minded, loved by the Atlantic media, and Russia despises him as an ally.

The Pacific worldview neither worships Asia nor forgets Europe. Rather, for Westerners, it reflects the direction of the Pilgrims and the Pioneers, who kept pressing West to know the globe and make a better life than generations before. The Premillennial Era generation is a Pacific-minded generation.

This generation wants all things to have a function as well as good appearance—the appearance of function is splendid. We are no longer interested in having the newest technology, we want the best technology history has to offer, including today's history. In the 1960's and 1970's, microwave dinners were a fad because they "could" be, not because they used the best way to cook a meal. Premillennials want healthy, genuine food more than convenience. Gen X tested microwave dinners on themselves while viewing it as a finished product. Premillennials don't mind being guinea pigs, as long as we know it.

With terms like "beta" floating around, we actually enjoy testing products, but we don't confuse "latest-greatest" with "ready for production use". If we are using a "beta" product, we want the "beta" logo in the corner for two reasons: 1. to make sure we know it will have bugs and 2. for accolades as a forerunner ahead of the curve—but it must actually be in beta testing or we're not interested.

Beta testing serves two main functions, one is less likely to be recognized. Products need to be used and refined before being released for production. But, also, testing and trying things is educational.

If you ask a Premillennial why he uses inventions that have been shelved for almost 100 years, he'll say, "It's classy." But, properly interpreted, that feedback tells us that Premillennials don't choose things merely because they find them classy—because every generation thinks of their preferences as "classy". Actually, Premillennials find "the best of history" to be their definition of "classy", rather than "latest, greatest".

The difference between Gen X Postmodernity and Gen Y Premillennial thinking can easily be seen in the different Batman movie franchises. While the first Michael Keaton movies had gadgets and colors, Christian Bale brought background and depth. Premillennials wanted to know where Bruce Wayne learned his skills and developed his philosophy. Hardship was the best teacher. The first Bale movie started with a history lesson while Keaton's background came through flashbacks.

Bale's series started when Bruce Wayne was still in beta—first, Bruce began by learning atop a mountain in an ancient martial arts club (fascination with Asia also showed up in the second movie with a visit to Hong Kong.) Second, he had to test his own graphite masks that had manufacturing flaws. And, of course, Wayne's favorite place at his company was the room that had all the products still in beta. We didn't see any of that in the Keaton series, which was more about mystery, personality, excitement, art, and symbolism.

Nicholson's Joker was a character of irony who fell from a high position and wore a smile while harboring anger. Ledger's Joker was deranged, brilliant, scared, had a mysterious background, and, of course, wore custom-made clothes that reflected multiple fashions throughout history.

While marketing was seen as the source of public enthusiasm in the latter 20th century, marketing today must follow daily trends on social media lest it become outdated within weeks—meaning that marketing is losing its influence and has become a follower of something else.

During the Premillennial Threshold Era, new discoveries are no longer headline-worthy; they come out one Tweet at a time. With the lack of good ideas from the gaping hole in Postmodernity's so-called "logic", people are more interested in opinion than they are in current events. This raises questions about how important it is to have instant access to all breaking news as it happens.

Most "news flashes" these days follow the most recent events, not necessarily the most important. This "infotainment", as some call it, hides sensationalism behind a veil of "following the times". The "instant news access" culture developed when press associations provided news wires to radio and newspapers. I suggest that "up-to-speed news gathering" works in the range of one to fourteen days, as a business model. Anything faster than that may show a spike in viewership, but it isn't the essence of info sources as a sustainable business.

Some articles don't become popular until weeks after the fact, when news might better be called "recent history". This does not indicate that news needs to be reported faster, but rather, that the news doesn't need to. This is explained by the Renaissance movement in which people want to examine history—even recent history—for understanding.

Cable news numbers indicate that viewers are more interested in the opinion provided by news than the actual news itself. Conservative journalists are focusing more on writing their opinions than on writing the so-called "non-biased journalism" articles of 50 years ago. This doesn't seem to be a problem for the Premillennial Era market.
**True Conservatism and Political Marketing**

"Conservative" is a relative term. In the aftermath of the Berlin Wall's falling, "Conservatives" (Right wing) in Russia wanted Communism while "Liberals" (Left wing) wanted freedom of speech, democracy, representation, etc. In the United States, "Conservative" means having ideas similar to the framers of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Compared to politics today, this means there are actually two kinds of Liberals and no real Conservatives in politics.

Arguably, the Libertarian party is just an exaggeration of what the Republican Party markets itself as (not what it actually is, of course). One might say that the Republican Party is the "palatable Libertarian". The RNC portrays itself as favoring "taxless anarchy". Republican leaders don't actually say this, but it is implied with terms like "less [government]" and "lower [taxes]".

"Less" and "lower" are relative terms, which Republicans don't define. If they really did what they talk about, there would be no government and no taxes. The founding fathers didn't want that. Republicans don't either. But, with their excessive use of unqualified comparative adjectives, it's a party of excitement with no clear destination.

The Democrats claim to want to do all sorts of good things through policies that have only had reverse effects, proven over the last 80 years. Their goals are great. They just can't achieve them. Most Democrat voters vote based on the goals of campaign speeches, not on the track record of actually being able to achieve those goals. Republican voters don't differ from Democratic voters on as much as the media would have us believe. If Democratic politicians could do what they claim to want to do, most Republicans would also vote for them. But, most Democratic voters don't know this about Republican voters.

(Specifically, this is apart from the abortion issue. Guns being the second main issue, which is largely about lowering crime. Anti-gun laws aim to lower crime. If anti-gun laws lowered crime, they would probably have more Republican support. The problem is that anti-gun laws don't lower crime. As for issues like health care and welfare, Republicans also want health care to be affordable, which was why they voted against health care bills that would raise costs. Democratic voters didn't think those bills would make the cost go up. Democratic and Republican voters agree on many of the same goals; Republican voters tend to have more of an eye for what will get the results. Romneycare in Massachusetts was an exception because the Atlantic-minded Republicans on the east coast are mostly RINOs anyway. RINOs can't win when they run as Republicans because, again, Republican voters have an eye for results.)

By and large, the main disagreement between Democrats and Republicans is how they want to go about implementing their goals—goals which are actually very much the same. Democratic voters tend to accept whatever strategy is put forth by politicians who shout everyone's mutual goals the loudest, while Republican voters tend to niggle over the details of which specific strategy will work better than all others.

Republicans want to solve problems by indefinitely "shrinking" government (because they never talk about the line where the shrinking stops, which means that companies get infinitely bigger and eventually take over everything). Democrats try to solve problems by having the government get infinitely more power, specifically to "nanny" and make loads of "rules rules rules" for every little, petty thing, with no talk of the importance of being surgical, precise, and getting the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible. (This refers to the politicians, not the voters.)

In contrast to both parties, the Declaration of Independence complained about there not being enough good laws, as well as too many of the bad laws. This describes neither Republican nor Democratic talking points today. The Constitution calls for heavy regulation of guns through both the Federal and State governments via the Militia. Today, Republican laws have "carry permits" with no militia relationship and Democratic laws want no guns at all.

There are many other examples of how Republicans (including their Libertarian geek-child) and Democrats are both just two kinds of Liberals who want to change from the original concept of the United States's founding. Neither party is what they market themselves as, and Republicans don't even market themselves as real Conservatives, in the sense of the technical definition.

Many people say, "I'm Right on finances but Left on social issues..." But usually those people don't even know what "Right" and "Left" on any issue means. Do they really think that "Right" means "not caring about people"? "Left" on social issues means 3/4 of the country collecting welfare money from the rest who work hard and have a lower standard of living—that's not what Democratic voters think, but that is where the Left wing "social" politicians have consistently taken us.

The Republican version of "Left", which is marketed as "Right" when it is anything but, ends up turning the country into the kind of nightmare seen in the movie Robocop, where uber-giant companies have power over government.

Most Republican and Democratic Americans don't even really know each other enough to know where they actually disagree. Many times, they actually want the same thing. But they are each so accustomed to their preferred branding of their ideas—and spite for the "other" branding and being succors for political marketing—that they vote for the party of their "favorite color" in so many words... even though none of the established parties have any intention of being what they market themselves as.

While I address how to solve these problems in The People's Party, I only want to clarify here that most Americans really have no clue what the political terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" actually even mean, literally or in practice. So, I prefer to avoid them as much as I can. I wish I could avoid the terms altogether because nothing seems to mean anything anymore. Time for the next chapter... #headDesk
**The 'Make Money' Movement**

The term "Grand Old Party" is well deserved and well-earned.

I am not all in for the Republican Establishment. I wrote The People's Party because I think the Republican Establishment needs to be evacuated. But, there are some misunderstandings that need some clarification. As I just explained in the previous chapter, both Democratic and Republican Establishments have marketing that is inconsistent with who they really are.

The voters of both parties have great ideas and agreeable goals, but each party sells themselves to future generations based on ignorance about the opposing party. Their bipolar marketing works because their voters don't know each other.

The GOP is not the party of "no", as their opponents market them to be, but it is the party of "dogma". Hence the appropriate name, "grand ole' party". It touts itself as grand merely on the basis that it's old.

The truth benefits from evidence. But the GOP base rarely gives understandable evidence for their positions. This is not because they don't have any, but because in the success of their good ideas, they have gotten fat, happy, and outright lazy—too lazy to teach their own kids the real reasons why their ideas worked in the first place. Instead of teaching, most parents just drop easy anecdotes.

Eventually, their kids grow up and get more ideas and arguments from Liberal teachers than they ever heard from their parents. They start touting Marxist ideas, thinking they are smart for it. Then, Republican-leaning parents don't know how to respond because they never really hashed out their own ideas before; they just believed the "grand ole'" dogma.

Democrat-leaning parents don't have the same problem because the education and media Establishments collaborate to market Democrats as the "cool" party—and the only party that actually cares about people. No one knows any better.

So, all that "America hurt people to get where it is" advertising is based on ignorance that the GOP created through its silence. The "racism benefitted America" argument is also ignorant from a number of reasons. The North won using all the money non-slavery generated.

America did not benefit from slavery; it benefitted in spite of slavery because of the other things it did right.

As for the problems with how the US government treated Indians (Native Americans, specifically, but we want to be called Indians), you should know up front that I am part Cherokee. I don't speak from ignorance. As badly as the imperial English culture treated America's Indians as well as the Hindis in India, the US government having given reservations really was a wonderful thing that other empires didn't do. Latin America doesn't have Aztec reservations. Never over-rate the evils of history. Responsible students of history must explain evil for what it was and what it was not.

America did not prosper from hurting others, it prospered from all the good things it did right, despite all the evil it did, because the good things America did were so exceedingly wise and good. But, most of us don't know why the good things were good. And, the media and education systems don't tell the full story.

Much of it began with WWII. The Builder's generation "won the war" and built the "Golden 50's". They "survived the Great Depression". Then, they had a lot of babies, but didn't train them. They just expected compliance.

"Because I won the war and worked to give you what you have! That's why!" was the explanation the Builders gave their children for the morals they demanded. When their children, the Baby Boomers, grew up, they had no idea what got their country its money and why their parents' wisdom was wise—because their parents hadn't taught them.

About the time the Boomers reached early adulthood, Postmodernism from Europe was already spreading across the Atlantic. Two world wars had already shaken the philosophical and religious foundations of the Old West, which thought itself to be the kingdom of God on earth that was unshakeable. So, Europe stopped believing in God. A few decades later, America's Boomers followed suit.

It wasn't that evidence for God doesn't exist, but that Europe learned that God doesn't exist the way the European Establishment claimed He did. Similar things are happening to the Sunday morning Churchianity establishment. Jesus is real, but Jesus is rarely invited to Sunday morning. Yet, many pastors will tell you that, without Sunday morning, you can't know Jesus—at least not very well. No one considers that Jesus is real, but clergy teach for profitability. People don't know the difference. They don't try to know the difference. So, they throw Mary's baby out with the baptismal water.

The old American ideals were built on similar sand. Hard work is a good idea. But Hippies didn't know that. Having sex before marriage tends to lower birth rates, lead to kids with single parent homes (which isn't fun by the way), and make divorce seem like a normal thing. Declining birthrates means that programs like Social Security will have problems—few people consider Social Security's economic problem as having started with a moral problem.

Is the requirement of marriage all that "enslaving"? How about all the trouble created by broken retirement funds, bad economies, kids growing up not knowing their fathers, parents having children, but not money... Immorality has not resulted in its own form of oppression?

Rules are not bad. The problem is with dogma that led us to the war on rules. How about we try having good rules and knowing why we have them?

We shouldn't believe the truth without knowing why, nor should we teach the truth without teaching why. But the truth is still true, even if no one taught us why. So, don't throw out the truth. Instead, get busy. Don't be lazy teachers like the Builders nor lazy workers like the Boomers, but figure out why the truth is the truth and do better than either generation.

At some point we have to take personal responsibility for getting out of whatever situation we are in. Maybe life was too good for us and we need to toughen up by spending time with people less fortunate than ourselves. Maybe we were born into a family with irresponsible parents or someone beat us during early childhood. Maybe we grew up in a religious bubble that demanded obedience without understanding and keeps people ignorant of the outside world in order for the leaders to maintain control. Maybe we were told to vote for a certain political party because our parents did. We are not responsible for the problems we are given; we are responsible for getting out of them.

At what point do we realize that the motto "someone owes me something" doesn't pay the bills? At what point do we accept that wise people only come across as arrogant when we are drowning in a pool of our own self pity? At what point do we realize that, just maybe, the reason we don't have any money is because we spend too much time hating the people who do? When is it okay to do what is necessary to thrive? When are we allowed to realize that cleaning your own house doesn't mean that your neighbor's house automatically gets dirtier? When will we figure out that learning something doesn't make someone else dumber? When are we allowed to figure out that climbing a tree doesn't make other people lower, it helps us get a better view of them?

So, we come to the scene of American economics. The best-kept secret about America's prosperity is that it came from hardship—not just hard work: hardship. The rich west coast was built by pioneers who survived savages trying to eat them alive (not all of us Indians though, just some), as well as American bandits and religious cults. Lack of police in the vast, wild frontier was one of the reasons Americans have needed to carry guns for so many years. (Today, crime breaks out where guns are outlawed, not because all humans should carry weapons, but because Americans have carried them from the beginning. Carrying guns may be necessary in very few countries.)

My own family comes from a group of Pioneers who fled the KKK after helping with the Underground Railroad. Two of their children were reportedly killed by the Mormons on their way through Utah, Sarah and Reason Davis. My grandmother, from Everett, WA, was an entertainer who married a sailor. His roots came from Alfonso Steele in Texas, whose relatives probably owned slaves who were escaping to Chicago through the Underground Railroad that went through the Davis farm in Independence, MO... I have a complex family heritage.

Alfonso fought in the battle of San Jacinto when he was 19. With the first volley he was shot, but he continued to fight until victory. His horse, which he loaned to General Houston, was shot out from under the general... I could go on, but my point is that my own family heritage taught me that the Wild West was filled with hardship.

Right or wrong, my ancestors struggled. And that made them strong. My family was no exception.

Hardship built America. From the slave owners' perspective, slavery should have been a bad idea because it gave Blacks the hardship that would make them stronger than their masters. Egypt made the same mistake with Israel a few thousand years ago. Inbred elites tend to be slow on the uptake, another reason kooks worry too much. Those who went through hardship conquered dynasties.

This is where wisdom is accused of propaganda. "You're just saying that difficulty makes people stronger to make the minorities, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, and the victims shut up," they say. But, no, I'm not trying to get victims shut up. I'm trying to get victims to wake up and stand up because I believe in the ability of every human being to overcome whatever challenges arise—not in spite of those challenges, but because of the strength that comes from facing those challenges.

I'm not trying to sell you snake oil. I don't advocate slavery or prejudice just because they create challenges. We have enough challenges that we don't need to create any more. I am trying to explain that, in the game of politics and power, the trouble that Blacks went through made them stronger, not weaker—because of how bad and terrible it was.

Growing up with everything handed to us makes us lazy. It makes us think that we don't need to be smart or sharp in order to survive. Helping the chicken hatch kills the chicken. Power-players know this, which is why I speculate that Lynden Johnson's Great Society program was intended to keep Blacks poor all along. Helping the chickens means not helping them hatch. Johnson was smart enough to know that.

The Civil Rights movement was necessary and there is still more work to be done. Prejudices morph and change like a virus that adapts. We need new methods to address the ever changing problem of our prejudices about each other. But Johnson's particular method may have done more harm than good. I won't get too political. There is a lot that can be said about this, which I explore more in The People's Party. My point is that the way to solve problems is not always as cut and dry as blue-red political 30 second sound bites would have us think.

Democratic politicians market themselves as the party that wants to "help people". Do you believe that? Do you believe that Republican voters don't want to help people? Sure, there were bad White apples in MLK Junior's day. But many of them are dead and gone. Republican supporters today are not thirsty for Black blood. Most White Republican prejudice comes from ignorance, not the overt racism of the past.

At the same time, Republican voters talk as if Democrats just want to be lazy? Are you kidding? Black Democratic voters in Detroit want to work and earn money and make a better life for themselves. I know. I'm from Michigan. And I've pounded the pavement in the streets of Detroit. Of course, some people just want to sit home. But that includes a lot of White people who vote Republican. Democratic and Republican voters have a lot more in common than they know. They can help each other, but first they need to know each other.

What will it take for us to realize that we can't have an opinion about a movie we've never seen? It's not that we are "not allowed" to have an opinion—we can't. If you haven't seen a movie, you may have an opinion about what you guess about the movie, but not about the actual movie. That's an opinion about something that only exists in your head. This is not very different from all the Democratic and Republican voters who make assumptions about each other when, actually, they're just disagreeing with people in their own heads. We can't have an opinion about people we haven't carefully listened to—it's not that we aren't allowed to; we can't.

We need to stop trying to understand other people through the lies told about them from our leaders and do what Jesus taught us to do and actually sit down and have a conversation. We don't necessarily need to agree. We just need to know each other.

The super-charity, "help people" marketing of the Left wing has not done us any good. The Republican Establishment has capitalized on votes from people who have too much trust in dogma of old success. It's time to earn our success again and start over like Lincoln's Republican Party did in its early days—when times were hard.

After they got a little older, the Hippies slowly learned that Postmodernity of Europe did not work any more than the Religious Establishment. Then, they slowly filed off, put on their ties, and slipped off to work through the back door, bought homes instead of communes, had kids, then divorced... and the whole thing started all over again.

The other part of the story of America's hardship comes from the east coast. The real oppressor in the world was never America, but Britain. Just ask Africa or India or Mel Gibson. The Pilgrims sought to escape the oppression of old Europe's feudalism. In prospering, the world power in London became jealous and oppressed America. Early Americans, Whites included, prospered from their own hardship given to them by their European oppressors.

The early Pilgrim colony at Jamestown tried a form of communism and only 60-some out of 500 people survived the first few winters. They followed the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". They had a central granary into which everyone deposited and from which everyone took. After more than 400 people died from lack of food, they instituted a new policy: Every man for himself. The next year, they had a surplus.

Communism had already been tested in early America. The 1900's had many failures after that, worldwide. Communism is probably not going to work, even if you haven't tested it yet. But, if you do ever get Communism to work, let me know and I'll write the book about how you made history. Until then, remember that Communism experiments always have excuses why they fail, but they still fail. And, media and education Establishments tend to market Communism as something it's not. Love and charity are good things, but they are different from Communism.

At first, the Pilgrims were loving, charitable Communists who starved. Then they changed into loving, charitable individuals who prospered. Perhaps, Communism can be credited for America's prosperity, in one way. Thanks to Communism, early American Pilgrims had lots of hardship.

The failures of Communism do not mean that everything should be proprietary. Linux is one example of many profitable open-source software projects where developers charge money to customers for their work, supply, and maintenance, but the code they write in the process is freely released to the public. It is somewhat built on the principle that, if you buy a car, you should be able to look under the hood, make your own mods, and make for yourself whatever you can make in your own garage. It seems a lot like Micah 4:4 and Zechariah 3:10 where each man eats from his own fruit and neighbors invite to share in each other's shade.

Developers constantly contribute code to each other in order to finish projects that their various businesses need. The open source software and design culture of the information age is not an argument for Communism because those developers are not getting an equal paycheck from some central authority. Instead, it is an argument for sharing information and getting paid for individual hard work.

Hardship makes us stronger. Sharing information makes us smarter. Hard work makes us prosper.

Having lived in Asia, I've learned personally that the reason Asian countries—though they excel at engineering—lack innovation is because they aren't taught to think for themselves. Mothers and teachers blurt out answers before children have time to struggle, grow, and discover the answers on their own. The part you won't see in the news for at least the next few years is that the younger generation is getting sick of it.

Don't buy the lie that "helping" makes people stronger, smarter, or richer. Don't buy the lie that knowledge should be property nor that all hard work is equal. Don't buy the lies that one must be a Democrat to love people or that one must be a Republican in order to work hard or a Communist in order to share ideas. Never trust any political Establishment's propaganda for that matter.

And, never forget that honestly-earned prosperity isn't a bad thing—it's difficult to give away money if you can't produce anything. And, never forget that prosperity is earned through sweat and hardship; excuses, complaints, and reasons don't make gardens grow. And, don't make the same mistake as early America...

When you turn your hardship into bitter-sweet lemonade, don't become the oppressor yourself. And, make sure that you always explain why you do what you do—and explain that you have to explain that you have to explain why you do what you do, so the kids know when they grow up and explain why they explain why they explain why.

A new movement is coming in America that understands this. I call it the "Make Money" movement because I think they will use that phrase often because it will mean something to them.

Exercise is painful. It's not bad. And not all exercise has to happen in a shiny gym. In fact, the best exercise can happen in the most ordinary and dirtiest of places. The proof of good body building is not an attractive gym, but a healthy, strong body.

Don't make excuses for yourself. Every one of us in an expert at complaining about why something or someone "did it to us" to put us where we are. There may be a time to grieve and accept the difficulty of our situation, but don't stay there. If you're going through hell—keep going!

And if you're Black, don't ever use the unconscious prejudice of White people as an excuse to keep your mind off the ideas that will make your life better. Yes, White people have a lot of assumptions they are unaware of. I am still getting rid of my own. But when I used to cry and complain about my own problems, most of the people who told me to "just get over it" were Black people. I'm still working to catch up to where they were at.

And that's the thing about getting stuff done in the world. While all those other people, whatever the skin colors may happen to be, are making assumptions about you, use it to your advantage. Assumptions blind the assumer. If they assume things about you, then they don't know your full potential. So, they don't know that you might be able to put them out of business. So, they won't try to stop you when you out work them.

It doesn't take much to outwork assumptive people because, well—that's the best-kept secret about people who assume: They are lazy, that's why they assume. When someone jumps to conclusions about you, don't argue, don't negotiate, and certainly don't try to say anything sensible... Logic could never work on someone who assumes. Just get busy, be polite, and out work them. You'll be the new boss before too long.

So, if you've been oppressed, don't sit there and cry like a cat; reinterpret your pain as exercise that made you stronger than your oppressor. Don't cry for justice from your oppressor; get stronger than your oppressor, put him out of business, then give him a minimum wage job when his past success makes him too lazy to out-work you. Success is your best revenge.

But, of course all this becomes a problem for the press. There's just too much news out there. People who are trying to go somewhere with their lives can't afford to filter through all the negativity that gets published in order to get an objective view of the world, stay in the know, and keep getting stuff done.

That was another purpose I had in creating the Times. I wanted to create the front page that I would want to read. I wanted to create a news website for the "Make Money" movement because I really believe I'm not alone in having these ideas.

I believe it's coming. You should too. Watch for the slogans: shut up, man up, cheer up, grow up, wise up, straighten up, study up, dream up, step up, work up, raise up, and make bank!
**Establishment Meltdown**

America is experiencing a breakdown of the Christian Establishment, something I have come to refer to as "Churchianity". Part of this includes escape from the idea that we need a pastor to validate our friendships, without which we supposedly don't fulfill our "mandatory Christian fellowship". But the accusation is only partially true.

Part of the worldview of a Christian is the idea that we need to learn from each other. But the Bible never mandates any institutionalized Establishment to govern Christian fellowship. Still, to keep with the Bible's wisdom, Christians who abandon Sunday morning—or supplement it by attending multiple locations each Sunday—will need to get Bible teaching from somewhere. This creates a marketable need, whether a profit or freemium model.

Generally, underground Church modus operandi is preferable over government registered tax-exempt Establishments. It's better that fellowship remain as ad hoc and organic as possible. This keeps fellowship networks from being tracked by persecutors as much as it keeps them from being commandeered by usurpers.

Bible study should be regarded as an addiction—like gaming or talk radio, good stuff doesn't need a guilt trip. Arguably, freemium is a better alternative to the "compulsory donation" system of Churchianity (donate or else we'll blacklist you from the de facto guild). Gaming, also, has many successful freemium models. Bible teaching and world-wide fellowship opens up many opportunities for freebooks and freemium podcasts and blogs.

In the Biblical worldview, regularly listening to good ideas is a personal need, as well as a marketable "need". (This is probably part of the reason talk radio is popular among the 'Religious Right', merely from that demographic's habit of listening to teaching.) Until the turn of the 21st century, that need was largely met in the form of Sunday morning gatherings called "church". Times have changed.

The label "church" was somewhat deceptive since "Church" is universal and is defined as any Christians being gathered with two or more. What was called "church" should have been called "parachurch fellowship ministry" or something similar. Barna observed this shift in American Christian thinking with the trend that, more and more, Christians are distinguishing between "Church" (capital 'C') and "church(es)" (lower-case 'c'). I also wrote more about this in Clergy Don't Shepherd.

So, in the Premillennial Era, there is a need for good Bible teaching. This is not because Christians don't always have good Bible teachers who live close to them, though travel distance is a factor. More importantly, these days, Christians from one city want to share preaching and fellowship with Christians in another city. They want to hear from each other and talk to each other—Premillennial Era Christians want to know each other.

We are entering an era when we will respect Truth without depending on "Establishment" institutions to certify our understanding of that Truth. Wikipedia is evidence that this is happening and can happen successfully (because of open-ended bibliographies that can be checked, rather than depending on the honesty of the publisher). In this era, we will also know Jesus without "churches" as we now understand them. And we will primarily learn Bible somewhere other than Sunday morning sermons.

Many Americans pray for revival in their country, but they can't get free without being released from prison. They can't be healed while clinging to the Establishments that have crippled society with so-called "help". The heavy burden we place on pastors, by having converted pastors into clergy, has caused many men of God to burn out and the Church has only blamed those leaders when the responsibility of fellowship has always fallen at the feet of the individual. A time is coming when pastors will break out of the mold and do their work outside of the constricting and exhausting role of clergy.

Think of it—pastors who are not clergy. When that comes, Christian radio will increase its market share. All of Christian communications will for that matter.

Conferences and Bible teachers will also increase, but with a semi-irregular schedule. Just as we are able to attend movies irregularly, so will Christians gladly attend ad hoc gatherings and speaking engagements. And there will be a market for syndicating audio, video, and printable materials from those events over the web. As the clerical system of facilitating Christian fellowship phases-out103, the pastors who survive will find new work as teaching/media personalities who change with the times.

The talk radio genre allowed AM radio frequencies to thrive, even though FM has better sound quality, even long after the invention of television. Generally speaking, productivity-minded people are interested in spoken audio media because they can listen and learn while they work at home, the office, the kitchen, or the shop. While video has been a recent trend in web media, audio web content will continue, as SoundCloud has demonstrated in its "author pays" freemium model.

In our Premillennial Era, more people want to be more productive. Audio podcasting is perfect for the work environment because it allows people to listen while they work, while adding what talk radio can't: a "pause" button. Podcasting meets that marketable need in both the Bible-study and "make money" cultures, which seek to listen to a constant stream of interesting ideas.

In an anti-Establishment society, info hubs are already a marketable need. Non-institutionalized info hubs are certainly sustainable. This is a game changer because people have both the need and the ability to shift from centralized information sources to market wide sharing of information.

The old superstitions of Modernism and Postmodernism are wearing off. Christians are learning that they don't become more valid after they incorporate as a 501(c)(3). It actually creates as many problems for them as it creates for entrepreneurs that go public. It's just another way to lose in a hostile takeover. Premillennial generations have read the headlines about Facebook and know that "going public" is not always the best option, to say the least. Neither are mergers and acquisitions because they easily abandon the founder's autonomous talent, all the while thinking that keeping the name will suffice. The same thing happened to Sunday morning Churchianity.

Politically, Establishment party politics have divided nations and unified false election promises along with the resulting failure in their Postmodern government policies. One only needs to look at Europe. Political revival is inevitable for no other reason than it is in demand.

We don't need to critique the failure and corresponding mass-rejection of centrally-planned education. The failure of pro-common core political candidates has already done that. And, of course, the superstition that "news is unbiased" will draw people to report the news themselves and seek as much opinion as they can download.

For the religious, business, education, and media Establishment, show's over, curtain's down, Elvis has left the building. A flood of podcasters and freebook blothers are about to storm Premillennial Era media.
**The Myth of 'Non-Biased' Journalism**

The concept of "non-biased" media originated with the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine" from 1949 to 1987, which required equal air time for varying political opinions. It was from an era when mass media was limited and knowledge of current events needed to be the first priority.

Today, current event reporting can be delivered in a most unbiased way by everyone through social media and forms of mass media are no longer limited. So, the original purposes of the Fairness Doctrine are obsolete. Still, the concept of "non-biased" journalism that originated from that era lingers on.

Journalism was never truly unbiased. Instead, journalists would investigate an event or report, then compile the best "h'orderve" version. It had a bias for the summary that audiences needed. But, with increase in media availability—particularly with cable TV installations and AM radio audiences—the Fairness Doctrine outlasted its purpose, thereby inviting corruption like an abandoned fortress serving partisan political and crony economic prerogatives. As cable TV caught on, the "non-bias" image no longer achieved legal purposes of information getting out to the public, but mostly veiled hidden biases to lure viewers into thinking they were receiving truth. As Howard Beale so accurately said, "You'll never get any truth from us."

Bias has a great value. It makes us human and credible. It is a natural part of the thinking process. "Non-bias" is a wind-up for a snake oil sales pitch. Bias is notoriety. But, more importantly, biases must be flexible.

Bias itself is not a problem, but inflexible bias is the refusal to change one's opinion when one is obviously proven wrong. A flexible, moldable, ever developing bias is a sign of intelligence. In the Premillennial Era, the myth of "unbiased reporting" just won't sell, and for good reason.

Readers in the digital age want the interpretations of the times from others in order to challenge their own thinking. These interpretations naturally carry a bias for debated and controversial ideas that will help with progress. Readers want a biased opinion that is honest about its biases. They want truth reported, not distorted, and certainly not misreported as being distorted when reported accurately. Honesty and bias go hand in hand. But we must control and know our biases, not deny or futilely attempt to obliterate them.

The problem with honest reporting is not with having a bias, but with dishonesty and dubious intentions. My motto is, "You decide, I report." Some journalists live by this principle, while Establishment types live by, "Write-first, interview later." Establishments always prefer the facts that are tailored to fit orthodoxy.

This isn't merely the relationship between the journalists and the audience, but also the journalists and the facts. "Write-first, interview later" reporters keep asking the same question until they get the answer they like, rather than stopping at an honest answer. Honest reporters find out what they need to, then report to the audience. Both types of reporters have a bias, one has a bias for what he wants history to become, the other has a bias for whatever history happens to be.

While bias can't be escaped, we can think within them. We can have original ideas, avoid using ideological scripts, refuse to say things how teachers and parents say them, and be honest about the difference between truth and opinion. And, of course, we are more likely to know our own biases by getting feedback from others who think differently and come from a different background. Even if they are wrong, you will sharpen your own ideas if you listen to those who speak differently than you do.

We will know our own biases better if we are willing to tolerate other people's. Bias isn't bad; it's human.

Life itself is biased between aerobic and anaerobic organisms, constantly duking it out. Plants and mammals are aerobic and have a large, body-wide system of microscopic agents that make up the immune system—and it is all dependent on air. These include macrophages, T cells, and healthy bacteria that the body needs. Every cell of a body's immune system operates independently, yet under the direction of and in concert with the body. They don't take directions through an inorganic bureaucracy, but according to the aerobic principles embedded into their DNA. This relationship between microscopic agents and the body they serve is not rigid, but flexible and organic.

By contrast, anaerobic organisms, die if exposed to oxygen. They tend to be very small and have larger body that they are a part of. These include nearly all viruses, cancer, and harmful bacteria. They operate on their own, with no cooperation, yet have strength in their "selfish" numbers. They can make an aerobic body sick or even kill it.

The aerobic organisms have the capability, either through the immune system or the intelligent mind of science, medicine, and cleanliness, to overcome most anaerobic organisms. Too much cleanliness, sterilization, immunization, and medicine weakens the body, which must develop a resistance to the anaerobic world. (I don't pose to give medical advice, but am reviewing general understanding that is widely available to the public in order to make a point.)

One of the arguments against excessive immunizations at an early age is that they "help" the developing immune system too much, which both injures it and prevents the struggle which makes an immune system strong. But I detract. These are matters for discussion in other arenas.

In theory, with the proper balance of cleanliness, medicine, exposure, nutrition, exercise, rest, and other healthy living, aerobic life can theoretically defeat any anaerobic organism (viruses, cancer, and other diseases). But certain principles must be followed. These are the principles of life. Without them, anaerobic organisms would destroy an aerobic body.

This aerobic-anaerobic battle has application to the Church as well as to politics, business, relationships, epistemology, even arts, sciences, manufacturing, media. Each field has its own principles that will cause lasting success or failure. Such good principles can include: Good things come to those who wait, do to others as you would have them do to you, look for quality over quantity, quality comes with quantity practice, don't rob tomorrow's business for fast results today, don't put a Band-Aid™ on a broken arm, etc.

As these values are debated, so are the principles that support aerobic life, themselves, controversial! Someone is always preaching some new philosophy that seeks to slash away the principles that make aerobic organisms strong.

Junk food fills the shelves of grocery stores. Pleasant-sounding messages come from preachers who have not made any positive difference in the lives of their listeners. Television is filled with immorality. We complain about immoral results, but never storm the TV stations because "that would be controversial". And political correctness would remove every idea from a debate that both sides don't agree to, thereby removing the purpose of debating in the first place.

Anaerobic philosophies and worldviews constantly attack wise people for their wise choices, accusing them of "offending". It seems that the nations of the world want to offend no one except the people who want to live. Life itself is under persecution in the name of so-called "objectivity".

Bias cannot be helped. To be biased in favor of "non-bias" is to be biased toward the politically correct anaerobic world that can't survive the controversial strengths of air and light. Often times, journalists have a bias the prerogatives of journalism. Everything and everyone is biased by definition.

Progress is biased. Wisdom is biased. Their opponents are foolishness, failure, and death, which should not be given equal air time. Everyone thinks in this way about his own ideas already.

Many people pat themselves on the back for being "independent" or "Agnostic" or "objective" for not having an opinion, viewing themselves as in the right and others as wrong, all on account for not reaching a conclusion. That in itself is a passive form of self-righteousness because it denies both the value and presence of an opinion all the while concealing one of the strongest opinions of all. Anyone who portends to have no bias is selling something else somewhere else and the mythical "non-bias" is only the bait. Perhaps they are selling pride, another highly traded commodity.

Is there a place for being objective? Absolutely! Objective listening is different from non-biased reporting. Summaries can deliver the truth, modified as little as possible. This is good reporting of information, events, and the opinions of others. Knowing what people say, and reporting it accurately, is still a major part any mass media.

Knowing something, being confident and happy about knowing that we know it, and having an opinion about our circumstances are very basic needs for every human. Having an opinion is part of having a free will, which is part of what it means to be the Image of God. Martin Luther gave us an idea about the ultimate theological question, which, in my own words, is not about our opinion of God, but about what our opinion of what God's opinion of us ought to be.

We look at the world around us and we ask ourselves what we are to make of what God made and what we are to make of what we made of what God made. We want to know and understand ourselves and what purposes and goals will make us "come to life". We look at people around us and we long to know each other.

When we don't know what to think, it bothers us. Sometimes it can cause depression. But knowing what to think, then being denied the permission to have that very opinion which makes us human, is far worse. No one despises human opinion more than the devil. Nothing fears the light more than the darkness.

There is a time to wait and avoid premature conclusions, which isn't a time for ambivalence, but a time for learning, listening, and observing. Many people make rush-judgments out of the natural human desire to know something, combined with impatience. Hasty opinions have caused as many problems as non-opinions.

We should not try to hasten the time to form an opinion, but rather hasten the process of learning so that we can have a quality opinion. Having an opinion is a noble goal. People who despise the very act of having an opinion, or who consider themselves content in having very few opinions at all, might do well to ask themselves why.
**Scripts**

Usually, biased journalism and agenda-oriented opinions indicate ideological scripts. Cliques, usually religious or extracurricular clubs and fraternities, get into a group-think way of talking. They say the same things over and over at all their meetings, repeating the same words everywhere they go, rarely expressing new ideas. This happens in any subculture and industry, especially Establishments.

Where media is concerned, authors should be unique. When articles from different media outlets seem to express the same ideas, the authors are probably members of the same clique. While history tends to repeat, history books shouldn't. Redundancy is bad journalism. It's often known as plagiarism and it is all too normal.

As a writer who addresses issues in the Pacific political world, I see anti-China scripts from the West and anti-West scripts from China. I have taken flack from both sides of the propaganda battle over the Pacific, merely because I have original ideas about the topics, usually relating to international policy. While I'll openly criticize and commend any country's policy, I will never use normal, run of the mill, boilerplate scripts to do it.

Those who object to my articles rarely actually disagree with anything I write; they only think they disagreed because I don't use the same script they expect to see in every article they read. It's not uncommon for an exchange to end in, "So, Jesse, what DO you think, then?" I usually want to say something like, "Go read what I wrote slowly and with your eyes open." But that wouldn't help people understand. Learning new ideas takes some repetition.

It's difficult to understand new ideas by trying to label an author with a preexisting script rather than understanding the article. Unfortunately, scripts are what we expect. So, it's hard for me to blame the very readers I'm trying to help break out of the mold. Impatience is a script to itself.

Donald Trump's early presidential campaign didn't follow any of the scripts. He didn't talk like a penny-pincher who claimed that jobs had to leave America because "China was cheaper". But he also didn't bash China with the usual, "China's dirty, smelly, ugly, and eats other people's lunches," mantra. He was original.

Trump didn't talk with the super-polished rules of "politeness" expected of the political Establishment, which most Americans disdain. People want jobs and freedom to create them, not diplomatic unemployment. "Use a nice tone" is a script people hear on the TV and radio every day. It was another script Trump didn't follow. This is a good explanation for why he did so well in the polls so early on. People don't read the "news" paper to get old ideas. News should be "new".

As another example, Rush Limbaugh grows his audience regularly by provoking the mainstream "drive-by" media into complaining about him, granting him free advertising on the very networks that despise him. (Remember, all press is good press.) He does this because the media "drive-bys" he boxes with are predictable enough that he can have a "media tweak item of the day", where he intentionally pushes their buttons to make them complain. The scripted thinking in the mainstream media makes it as easy for Limbaugh to anticipate their response, just as a bull fighter controls a bull by making it angry. Limbaugh dominates talk shows that he has no part of because they use scripted strategies while he does not.

"Global warming" is another example of an ideological script. While there is climate change, the trend is for extreme heat, but even more extreme cold. Some report that temperature extremes are not as significant as rainfall extremes, which are also trending toward more droughts, but even more precipitation.

Climate change is a problem, but it's a complex problem, not a simple problem. Its way more involved than anthropogenic green house gases, which are still part of the problem. Many scientists cite reasons for our sun being the cause, relating to magnetic fields and long-term solar cycles. Keeping the environment cleaner wouldn't be a bad thing, but nothing we do or don't do can stop solar system-wide climate change, of which Earth's changes are the smallest.

"Global warming" is more about getting everyone to parrot the same phrases rather than thinking about new and better solutions. (Research "Agenda 21" from the UN.) The "global warming" goal is to blame humanity in order for the script writers to achieve other purposes, probably fascism, pantheistic religion among elites, and global takeover, but that is speculation, regardless.

The "global warming" script itself had problems. Should we really think we have that much power over the earth? That much power? Why do carbonated beverages have certification labels about their "carbon footprint"? Does someone drinking a carbonated beverage really care about a carbon footprint? Bragging about a low carbon footprint on carbonated beverages is not a mere oversight; it's an indication that real thinking was never meant to be involved in the first place.

In and around China, clean air is in high demand. The scripts won't tell us to keep Earth clean so we can be happier, but because "Earth is our mother" and "we should love Earth more than ourselves" and that nature-worship jazz. We should take care of Earth—not as tree worshipers, but as stewards who serve the Creator. We do need new energy solutions—not to prevent climate change, but to survive it.

Other examples of ideological scripts can be found throughout America's religious culture along with most opinions on merely any topic of debate. Establishments love scripts. They need them in order to retain the societal vehicles they commandeer.

A Second Amendment advocate myself, I ask why Conservatives don't demand a high school militia training class. But, Establishment Conservatism—as opposed to authentic Conservatism—doesn't address the "militia" part of the gun debate because most so-called "Conservatism" is just another script through which an Establishment sells fake ideology the masses in order to control them. The "Religious Right" is more of an attitude than any political philosophy. True Conservatism would be great. We just don't seem to have much.

Churchianity's scripted thinking exists throughout sermons of Bible teachers. For one famous example, "stay in community" and "keep coming to church" resurface as the solution to nearly every problem. This particular script misses the obvious point that the people listening in the pews already agree "go to church" or else they wouldn't be listening in the first place. Preaching to those who are already convinced and telling people to keep coming back "or else" are old practices from cult playbooks. Why does "God's Church" need cult practices—if it really is God's Church and not a closet business that has failed to reinvent?

One young Christian in Asia told me, "At church, they always say that if I don't go to church, I will have no motivation to learn about Jesus." So, then is Jesus so boring and bland that without the marketing of Sunday morning, no one would ever pursue learning about him? Is our own sin stronger than his ability to fascinate us with the great and wonderful life that comes with being like him?

In many parts of the world, there either are no other Christians or no other Christians serious enough to meet with. Like an athlete who needs to get away from bad friends in order to keep training, the most dangerous influences for a Christian aren't non-Christians, but mediocre Christians. Staying away from Sunday morning is not far-fetched for anyone who is serious.

To assume that every Christian always has another Christian to talk to assumes that every place has Christians. Such Bible teachers have not considered the true work of Christianity—to go out, love, share, encourage, and bless others. Their scripted statements assume that the primary role of a Christian is to be on the receiving end of teaching and give money to the Bible teachers, rather than teaching and giving to others while paying their own way. This reflects small, passive thinking and demonstrably lacks vision. Whether or not intentional, it is the kind of propaganda designed by Establishments aiming to make people doubt themselves enough that they are easy to control in order to secure the Establishment's future. This scripted thinking is why so many Christians remain largely unsuccessful in their ventures as they are scorned in their cities and towns. Christians can do a lot of good in the world, but they have to break out of scripted thinking before they can do it.

I would rather be slandered by scripted Bible teachers than never talk to people who don't know that Jesus gives commands that can make our lives happier. Those Bible teachers make drastic assumptions because they have not traveled and reached-out enough to learn their own biases. Churchianity's problem is not with Christian fellowship, which is good if it is available, but with the Bible teachers using scripted teaching rather than doing their job to teach original ideas inspired by the pages of ageless wisdom. Instead, they speak from scripts that dwarf their listeners into small, petty, angry people.

The purpose of good teaching is to apply timeless wisdom to new situations, not get people to say the same old thing in every situation. But, that is difficult for a teacher who understands neither timeless wisdom nor new situations—the kinds of teachers Establishments usually produce.

There are many examples of how scripted ideas often insult. After the shooting in Columbine, NRA president Heston went to a rally in Columbine and talked about the Second Amendment. The NRA should have expressed sympathy and sent flowers rather than holding a rally with cheering. But, unlike the scripted criticism against the rally from the Left, the NRA wasn't trying to be disrespectful. They were merely operating according to their own ideological script—saying the same things they say at many of their events without considering new ideas or new situations. In that moment, the NRA didn't need "different" ideas, they needed "new" ideas. All the same, the Left who criticized the NRA did so using their script.

It was a battle of scripts. No one had any new ideas. That defines most so-called "arguments" between Americans.

With another big issue, racial tensions in America have escalated since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. This is in lieu of there being more cross-racial friendships and mutual cultural appreciation than ever before. The tension comes from addressing today's problems with the rhetoric of yesterday. Black advocates continue to use rhetoric that seems like it relates more to the 1960's than the 1990's or 2010's. In response, Whites think, "We already did that." Then they just walk away rather than think.

Neither side considers new ideas to address the fresh racial problems of today. Instead, everyone keeps saying the same thing. Yes, racial problems still exist. But the racial conflicts today seem to come more from lack of thinking up new ideas to address new forms of the old problem rather than from actual prejudice.

Scripts aren't anything new, especially in media. A "boilerplate" was a mass-produced article printing plate used back in the days when a printing press used metal plates to print periodicals. Newspapers and magazines needed fillers when their publications didn't have enough original writing. So, companies would write generic articles that seemed to fit any topic, mass produce them, and sell them at a low price to publishers and printing houses.

Boilerplate articles weren't original; they were made from a mold, sold to the press by someone else. Many of our ideas and discussions, in person and in the media, are just as much mass-manufactured. Too many people refuse to think outside of the boilerplate mold.

Ideological scripts are easy. They allow a freshman to stand up, take the microphone, and speak someone else's ideas so that no one will object, all without needing a single original thought. But scripts don't encourage people to know each other. Every person is unique; pre-fit molds are anything but.

By arguing old rhetoric, we reduce ourselves to actors parroting the words out of someone else's book—and the end has already been written. This is why the same old talk gets the same old results and societies rarely solve their problems. Right and Left accuse each other of using scripts, but few ever look to their own scripted expressions.

One doesn't need to throw away presses to throw away boilerplates. Scrapping the boilerplates would waste less ink. Do you really want to be a mass-manufactured mouthpiece for someone else who dare not show his face?

By being original, we don't lose our identity. We might actually find it. We can stay in character while improvising. We don't want the end of our debates sealed by scripted fate. If we want to write our own ending then we'll need to write our own lines.

When I come across people re-hashing the scripts from two sides of an old, scripted debate, I just walk away. If you ask me a question already answered in an old script, I'll just point you to the nearest library. It's better to say something that hasn't been said already.
**Political Correctness, Stereotypes, and Prejudice**

Ultimately, political correctness is an attempt to beat up on people who want to be genuine. It is a bastard child of Sophism, where "might is right", "all statements are lies", and "marketing is more important than substance". And, it promotes the lie that it's possible to offend no one, and that anyone who is offended must be automatically right.

Political correctness has convinced Western society that it's rude to use logic. This has gone to a point where we're not allowed to say things as simple as, "He has an American passport, he lived in America his entire life, therefore he has at least a 51% chance of speaking English." That would be "stereotyping"!

Stereotypes and prejudice are not the same. Stereotypes were meant to be broken, prejudice doesn't think so. But political correctness doesn't care.

Political correctness is convenient. It allows people to parrot the norm, act compassionate even when compassion isn't needed, and never do any thinking. People can get loads of credit and appreciation for being politically correct, even though nothing has been accomplished. Political correctness is a counterfeit used by people who no compassion, but want to appear as if they do.

Political correctness has become a tyrant of Western society. We see this because, while political correctness seems pious on the outside, standing against it will provoke political correctness to break all of its own rules. When confronted, it abandons all dignity, courtesy, manners, and threatens great injustice against any and all dissenters. It behaves like a tyrant because it is the mask a tyrant.

Political correctness is for society an anaerobic disease. Yet, few ever stand up to say that political correctness itself is offensive. Confronting political correctness is politically incorrect.

We rarely see anyone in the business world with the guts to say, "Angry customers are wrong because we did a good job," except luxury brands, and they make a huge profit! No one says that "non-bias reporting" is a myth. Of course, all this is changing in the Premillennial Era and the coming of the Make Money movement.

I want life to continue. For this, I won't apologize. I'm don't count it rude to say that sickness is a disease, though many do. I don't consider it "complaining" to say that we need a "cure".

Political correctness has even made its way into Sunday morning. But I'll have no part in it. If I raise my hands while singing to Jesus at a Christian gathering, and if that offends a person in the pew next to me, then that person desperately needs to raise their hands and ask Jesus for the gift of joy—to not be offended over good and harmless things such as raising ones hands to a God who loves us when we don't even love ourselves or each other.

When feckless Establishment Republicans say, "That law would offend someone," the politically savvy reply, "Then what are you waiting for? VOTE FOR IT!"

If you want to offend no one, you'll end up offending everyone. If you don't stand for something, you'll fail at everything. Democrats get votes year after year by offending and by being offended at Republicans! Neither party has done anything to heal the nation from the problems they created. Why can't the US get a political party that isn't afraid of offending people infected by political correctness? Could it be that the political Establishment is the nation's infection?

We need things that are offensive, not merely for the sake of angering people, but because life itself can't help but anger someone. Political correctness is not any creative solution. In fact, it is quite uncreative—the lazy, easy way. It is just another script.

Courage is quite the opposite of political correctness. Courage has substance. Even when outnumbered, courage finds strength within, overcomes the status quo, and defies the odds when every authority of society stands in the way. "Tank Man", who stopped an entire procession of Communist Chinese tanks, demonstrated the power of courage to stand against an army of cowards. Their armored vehicles still aren't enough keep them moving forward.

Though many people enslave themselves to the quest of offending no one, others will stand against them. Political correctness itself eventually becomes controversial. It can only last as a fad. Afterwards, society will expect boldness and macho behavior—not just in some circles, but the vast majority.

One example of standing up to tyrannical cowardice can be seen in Chinese history. No one has seen as much fame, money, and success as those who stand up to the KMT-Nationalists who occupied China before occupying Taiwan—just ask those who have stood up to them: Communist China, the Sunflower Movement, and the DPP opposition party that stormed the 2014 Taiwan local elections.

One of the grand mistakes of political correctness is how the West has misunderstood Chinese Communism—which, whether good, bad, or ugly, is not traditional Marxism. It's politically correct to bash the Chinese while, at the same time, acting like young people should think that Marxism's failure hasn't been proven enough already. China's successful religious and economic systems have been anything but Marxist, which is why they were so successful and is more than can be said for the policies of Democrats or Republicans.

Beijing stays out of the business sector because they know firsthand how government can contaminate the economy after the KMT-Nationalists destroyed China, and later crimped Taiwan's progress in the exile years after the revolution. The Nationalists have a quasi Fascist system, where the controlling party seizes and owns financial assets. And, China doesn't hate God. They just don't want dysfunctional Western missionaries getting in God's way like they do in their own countries.

Another problem with political correctness is the business insolvency. Not only does the fantasy of "not offending anyone" fail to convince most everyone, politically correct economic scripts would have us think that it's wrong to be able to pay the bills. Good writing costs money. Writers need to eat and educate their children. A blog with no plan for profit probably won't help its readers profit reading it. The concept of "profit" should be a good thing. Looking at the downturn in America's economy, the more people hated "profitability", the less job-creating profit there was.

The anti-profit propaganda has been so overwhelming, Generation Y doesn't even know what "profit" means. Search YouTube on "how to freelance" and watch all the young adults teach each other basics of financial solvency and the need for sales skill. In terms of religion and Bible, most moral debates are seen in terms of "should" lists from God. Actually, and I'm sure many readers will get a giggle out of this, Old and New Testament Jewish writers like Paul did not view God's commands so much as "to should or not to should", but as whether a choice was "profitable". The Jewish perspective is better.

Perhaps Conservatives would have gained more support had they marketed "Pro Life" in terms of Social Security remaining solvent if it had 30 million more people paying into it, rather than the "murder" language. I won't breach the moral implications, but I do believe that abortion hasn't been profitable for America's economy, nor has wide-spread homosexuality propagated a profitable labor force in France. They may or may not be related, but my point is the those debates haven't even included the question of "profitability" when, by New Testament Jewish "morals" definitions, perhaps "profitability" should have been among the questions from the beginning.

The anti-profit movement had its biggest failing when the Emergent Church discussion resulted in an exodus from Churchianity. It wasn't Jesus who failed when the Sunday morning numbers dropped, it was the "non-profit" evangel. That is a realization our culture may not have until 2025, when the young Etsy arts and crafts culture has had a chance to put it its 10,000 hours of mastery.

Etsy is essentially a Jewish-style online marketplace of craftsmanship, which is why it is so brilliant. It made hobbies profitable. Jesus was a Jewish craftsman. If Etsy is still here when he arrives, he may just open an Etsy shop. (Etsy has not endorsed this statement, but they oughtta'.)

Sunday morning Churchianity, being non-profit itself, never gave full respect to profitability. So, it could only teach morals in terms of "should" and "should not". Preachers could quote Bible verses about "profitability", but once the "donation" plate passed, it lost all "profitable" meaning. Lack of teaching on the Bible's "profit" basis for many (not all) morals preceded homosexuality and abortion, which are not the most efficient way to contribute to the birth rate—something an economy depends on. Arguably, Churchianity having trumpeted the anti-profit propaganda was a key factor in the global economic problems we face, both by detour and direct rout. Online markets like Etsy may be the solution.

These statements aren't exactly politically correct. They may not even be correct at all, but they are thought-provoking.

Political correctness certainly doesn't work with marketing or profitability. Consider the Sandra Fluke fiasco. Limbaugh made a comment on his talk radio show, which he later apologized for on ethical grounds, that he "lowered himself to their level of name-calling"(paraphrase). But his apology didn't come before a tsunami of complaints—which later turned out to be from non-customers, likely fake social media trolls—flooded Limbaugh's sponsors. Many of those advertisers pulled their advertising as a result. The customer is always right when he complains, right?

In the end, Limbaugh's audience grew its numbers from the awareness raised by the controversy. His former sponsors ended up with the greater struggle. Those sponsors would have ridden the wave if they understood the best kept secret of the press: All press is good press because all press are good at pressing.

The best kept secret of SEO and social media is: Much of it involves robots, not real people. Just ask reCAPTCHA. Much of the "backlash" against Limbaugh was on social media. That's what you call a "clue".

Info sourcing requires courage. Political correctness kills media outlets because it does not accurately reflect public opinion. This is the reason for the downfall of the Western media. Of course, it is politically correct to blame technology—the Modern Era explanation for everything.

Information can't be properly evaluated, nor can an economy prosper, nor can any religion maintain followers from a perspective of politically correct scripts. Problems aren't foreseeable, and certainly aren't solvable, unless we can interpret the times through sober eyes. Political correctness is anything but sober.
**Faux News**

The Establishment news media bias being what is, the faux news genre was inevitable. While it began as a comedy program, it quickly morphed into a viable way for an audience to follow current events. This is because the people are able to see through spin and biased opinion.

I recently brought this up with a friend who retorted as if on cue, "Faux news, you mean like how your President just said the economy is improving?" Though comical, he was right, which is the very principle of faux news. And the fact that he is so right about the rampant lies told throughout our world makes it difficult to distinguish between faux news and what traditional news shows are becoming. The very existence of faux news itself is a critique on the bias of the main stream news media Establishment.

FOX tried to tap into the faux news market about a decade ago with a few pilot episodes of The Half Hour News Hour. I think the reason the show didn't last was because it seemed centrally-planned—as if it had been commissioned by the network to tap the comedy market after Colbert and O'Reilly appeared on each other's shows. It didn't seem to be conceived by the host and it wasn't dominated by a single personality as most of FOX's other programming is. The Colbert Report and John Stewart's The Daily Show were dominated by one personality start to finish. While Colbert arguably grew his audience by making fun of O'Reilly, these Comedy Central faux news programs were better than FOX's, by faux news standards.

Though Colbert had many good ideas, his program was never going to last. He had a subtle contradiction: While he criticized Bush, the underlying principles of his criticism were about Bush not being a real Conservative, even though he didn't make it sound that way. He was a Liberal who attracted Ron Paul Conservatives. When Bush was no longer in office to criticize, his premise evaporated. This wasn't necessarily bad, but it wasn't a sustainable media business venture either. He did a good job, though the job was foreseeably temporary.

Another problem for Colbert was that Liberal's don't dominate political talk shows, even comical ones. This is why Air America was never going to "fly", as it were. Political and business-oriented talk shows naturally attract critical thinking audiences. Most Liberal-minded college students watch MTV and BET in high school, then get their first exposure to political ideas in college from professors who were former hippies (and arguably still are).

While Liberals like to think, they prefer to do it with their friends, reserving video and books for entertainment and audio for music. Conservatives tend to have a self-improvement, self-teaching streak. This has a big impact on how they use media. So, cable news and talk radio with high ratings tend to be Conservative, not because of establishments, but because the minds attract the genre, not vice versa.

College-age Liberalism seems like a collection of new ideas for the college students when, actually, it's classic, out-dated, boilerplate hippie-Postmodernism. The only thing new about college student Liberal converts' ideas is that it's new for them to have original ideas because their younger years were spent on entertainment. The fact that they are thinking is good, really. It's just too bad that their parents didn't help them cultivate original thinking in their younger years, as opposed to either indoctrination or no teaching at all, which is what usually happens.

I ascribe our culture-wide lack of thinking to two causes. First is Churchianity's obsession with indoctrinating rather than teaching. Indoctrination makes people just as mentally weak as excess entertainment and equally vulnerable to out-dated postmodernism. That happened with the Emergent Church.

The second factor is that Socratic-method learners may be more attracted to Liberal ideas in their early learning stages because of the style. Liberalism is a modern form of sophist deconstruction. So, it lures recruits by pretending to have a conversation as a means of hiding its very real agenda. Indoctrination, on the other hand, will attract Conservative minds because it pretends to be so confident about knowing the truth—even though it doesn't tell the whole truth. Conservatives don't want to think, they want to feel comfortable by hearing everyone say the "right" things, then go home. It's just another form of promoting the Establishment. We don't have a real Conservative party in America right now. We only have two learning styles seducing two types of parrots.

Colbert can teach us many things, including the need to have a more Socratic teaching method. This is one of the things Rush does with his conversational approach with callers. Decentralizing Christian and Conservative teaching will put more of a demand on digital info hubs, including podcasts. Podcasting, blogging, and ebooks are semi-anti-Establishment. That's another thing Colbert teaches us: People don't like the Establishment.

At this point, anyone who criticizes the Establishment will get fame. But that fame will eventually become infamy if he criticizes one Establishment while propping up another. As pro-Establishment Liberals, Colbert and Stewart had many healthy critiques of the Republican Establishment. Again, we don't really have a Conservative party in the States right now. The Half Hour News Hour was exclusively pro-Establishment Republican, which also hurt their ratings. By contrast, Comedy Central faux news attempts were pro-and-anti-Establishment at the same time.

Faux news has lots of potential. It has a glass ceiling because it has been exploited for political agendas. That is true of many things. Any good thing fails once it's commandeered, especially in the realm of ideas and information.

Bill O'Reilly went head-to-head with Colbert after Colbert kept jabbing him on his show. O'Reilly didn't seem to understand Colbert, who was probably just looking for a way to draw the limelight, just like when he ran for President. Colbert's "Presidential" campaign was equally misunderstood by the election commission. The goal was to "shut-up Stevie", similar to "flush Rush".

I can only imagine that Supreme Court arguments about Colbert would be even more comical. In order to understand faux news, one needs a sense of humor, something held by neither Washington nor serious talk show hosts other than Limbaugh. Colbert had to target O'Reilly. He would have lost had he gone up against a "loveable little fuzz ball" like Rush.

Thomas Aquinas said that laughter is a surprise encounter with the truth. Faux news gets people thinking by definition. It's a healthy contribution to society. It's also very politically incorrect, which only adds to the learning and relaxing benefits. People enjoy faux news because it flaunts its own spin on the truth and it's a great break from all the serious lies we get from most every other corner of society, news only being one of the many, "victim" culture being another.

**These are some of the considerations for why the Times has a faux news section. Its purpose isn't to try to tap into the faux news market, but to improve the quality of stimulating ideas for the audience.**
**Victim Culture**

As with the economy and government, most of the problems we have in the Church were foreseeable. People weren't happy when I critiqued Rob Bell's "Rain" video, before Velvet Elvis came out. Now, the old guard can't critique him enough and they still haven't figured out how to critique him accurately. He was mostly hated for not following politically correct scripts of Establishment Churchianity. The Establishment didn't see his deeper problems because, for any Establishment, "going against the Establishment" is the unwritten-unforgiveable sin.

From about 2002 through 2005, I tried to warn people that indoctrinating youth, rather than teaching them to think independently, was going to blow up. People stopped talking to me, seeking "protection" from my "dangerous ideas". Now, after I was unfortunately proven right, they avoid me for different reasons.

"I just don't understand what these problems are that you see, Jesse!!! [Therefore, because I can't see them, you shouldn't see them either and you should feel bad so that I can blackmail you into supporting the status quo.]" I don't say this for sympathy; there is a deeper problem I want to look at.

Follow this line of thinking, which is so prevailing over our day: I don't understand, I lack something, I have a problem which I refuse to solve, therefore you must listen to me and let me tell you what to do.

Rush Limbaugh calls this the "entitlement" way of thinking. American society no longer respects people who have worked, struggled, and learned in order to be where they are. This is a stark contrast to the beta-lovers of the Premillennial Era, which suggests that this may not last much longer. But, for now, we are led to think that being a victim makes someone the king. So, everyone wants to be a victim—especially Christians.

This is where we come to the problem of apologetics. Christians are beginning to stand up to professors who claim that the Bible isn't credible. But what about the lies that those Christians accept, which those non-Christians professors also accept—that Jesus needs pastors in order for us to have fellowship with each other—? This quiet lie, that the clerical system is modeled after the Bible, has given rise to the louder lies against the Bible, which seem to be the only lies Christians want to confront. Just as how people don't look to the throne behind the throne, Christians aren't looking to the lie behind the lies.

So, Christians who demand clerical participation are in no position to complain against non-Christian professors who propagate lies to discredit the Bible. Some Christians will try to stand up to those lies. They may even make some noise and get some attention. But they will not influence culture until they know each other without being dependent on trained and certified clergy to validate their Christian friendships.

Today, Christians think of themselves as victims of secular culture rather than victors in progress. This idea is propelled by the notion that it is dangerous to having Christian friendships without clergy involved to some extent. But, just as training wheels are dangerous when riding a bicycle properly, this codependency on listening to the same pastor in the same place at the same time with the same clique of people week after week has put the Church in a dangerous position. Christians will not be able to offer anything more interesting than MTV until they learn from the secular culture: The reason why non-Christian media is so interesting is not because it is devoid of the message of Jesus, but because the writers in Hollywood don't have their minds dulled by weekly indoctrination sessions.

Why haven't Christians figured this out? Because they don't know people outside their weekly groupies. They don't even know each other. They are so busy being afraid of "those guys" from the other denomination (usually under the guise of 'avoiding false doctrine') that they haven't been able to see the world around themselves.

In the political world, many countries don't understand each other, nor do they understand how to deal with foreigners within their own borders—because, while they welcome or reject foreigners, they rarely try to understand first and govern second.

Voters don't understand each other because we keep with our scripted arguments and demand all-or-nothing victories year after year... which means that none of us get what we want from politics because the Democratic and Republican politicians have more unity in governing against the will of the voters than the voters who swing them into power one cycle after another.

Even in the business and job market, different talented people don't know each other—managers, writers, technicians, programmers, artists, etc. The economy is having trouble because of widespread misunderstanding. And we rarely blame ourselves. We view ourselves as "victims".

This is where we come to the situation of the world today. While many countries and many parts of many societies have problems, solutions also exist. The solution to the world's problems is not to pretend that religion doesn't matter, nor to pretend that "all dogs go to heaven", nor to try to have wisdom apart from the God who gave us wisdom. The solution isn't to forget that Sunni Muslims (the 'peaceful kind') also want Israel to have no home, while at the same time they teach that all descendents of Abraham are family. The solution is not to hate Muslims or political parties. The solution is to know the truth by first coming to know each other. The solution is to own up to our own choice in the matter.
**Adventures**

My adventures among congregations in the Church began when I was young. Every summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, I'd visit my grandmother in Howell, Michigan—the place that grows the melons. Every time I visited, there was a new fiasco with a pastor leaving, the people being angry about one thing or another, having no pastor at all, or having just found a new pastor. The commentary from my mother and grandmother taught me many things about avoiding conflict in the Church. This significantly dulled my tone in conflict.

In my home town, I watched the same thing happen in the same denomination. A pastor announced one Sunday morning that, in the privacy of his own home, he had a prayer language. The congregation was so angry that those who disagreed sat on one side of the isle and those who supported the pastor sat on the other side. The congregation split and the music responsibility was handed to my mother when we moved to a school. We later moved to a small chapel on the other side of the river. Another school sat next door to the chapel.

The congregation that met in the school next door was growing. Mom decided to check it out one Sunday morning. After seeing that they had a strong children's program, mom tearfully stepped down from playing the piano and said, "Jesse, I want you to have a strong youth ministry program."

I didn't find out until years later that our new congregation had also come from a local Baptist "church split". It seems that's where all congregations come from anymore, even though we continue to criticize splits.

After my college years and a very active involvement throughout high school, I began to see the coming problems. Terms like "Emergent Church" hadn't quite shown up, but I saw the smoke on the horizon. I tried to warn people. Needless to say, no one listened. Over the decade that followed, all pastors resigned but one, many people left, new members arrived, and a lot of bickering blamed the first pastor who remained on staff long after.

While I delivered private criticism to the leadership before leaving, most of the critiques lost all usefulness within a few years. The youth turned into adults. Those who left, left. Those who stayed, stayed. And, arguably, by the time I saw the smoke on the horizon, it was too late to make a difference anyhow.

I made two observations during the years that followed, plus another relating to the worldwide Church. Most "church splits" result from members talking about a problem that no one formally brings before the elder board. If people would simply make an official motion to express their grievances, congregational drama would probably be cut in half.

Second, everyone blamed the pastor when, actually, I think God wanted him to keep the Establishment small, as happened from ignoring my warnings. Like Gideon, we usually operate best when we have low overhead. Had the leaders heeded my warnings, that Establishment might remain large and healthy, which would not be good for the people.

Looking back, I asked myself why few congregation members ever make an official motion at a board meeting to express their concerns. Ten years ago, I said that the people's love for the organization blinds their judgment. Today, I would say that the excessive love for a single organization is perpetuated by the same clerical system that blames pastors for the decisions of their congregations. It's the system, not the people, not even the pastors, who are usually to blame for conflict within Christian congregations. But I wouldn't realize that until ten years later, in Asia.

So, I set out on a mission. I couldn't understand why this system that had been purported as so "wonderful" and so "necessary" had so "absolutely" failed. There were other Christians in the world whom I wanted to know.

Even before sorrow hit my own congregation, I had familiarized myself with Mars Hill. During my college years, I made several trips to Willow Creek to understand why a congregation had grown to over 20,000 people in only two decades. I'd talk to the people who sat next to me or stood in line in front of me at their cafeteria. One man said, "I grew up Catholic. But their weekend services—the topical preaching—reintroduced me the power of God's Word." My father said the same thing after he listened to Bill teach on a Friday night.

There were many things I learned from Willow Creek. One night, in 2000, I happened to show up at a meeting when the famous "Dr. B" visited. He had helped Bill in the beginning and, now, he was back as a guest who needed no introduction. Bill had a Q&A before the message and, out of 4,000 people, he actually called on me to ask a question.

"I learned that God loves me at your church," I started. "But when I try to tell others, they say that you water-down Scripture. I don't agree, but what do you say." Bill was already out of time, but he went long over his time, which is a big deal considering that he is Dutch. I even heard an "amen" from the back of that room, which I never heard before or since. I'll summarize highlights from Bill's response as best as I can remember.

"The question is: We explain the gospel in [pause] a way that people can understand, and, people have concerns. This is the same problem we have faced since we started in 1975. It's very easy to for pastors to sit on their little hills of knowledge and point the finger, criticizing what happens here when they won't even get in the game. To those pastors, I'd ask: When was the last time you had dinner with your neighbor just to have dinner with them? It is so easy for seminary graduates to stand on their little hills of knowledge, preaching a bunch of difficult-to-understand ideas to those who are already convinced, leaving those outside locked in the cold. I went to visit my sailing partner one Saturday and he showed up totally stoned. I said, 'You need help. Let me help you. I'll take time off work to sit through a de-tox with you.' He came to our recent Christmas show and loved it. Then, he visited my house at a party afterwards and had a conversation with someone. After that other guy left, my friend kept talking about him. It was Joe Stowell. I'm not going to stand up here, acting like I'm here to preach some difficult-to-understand mystery of God. You think we are preaching a watered-down gospel? You listen to the message tonight and then you try to tell me that we water down Scripture."

I won't speculate on what Bill thought about a pastor taking time off work for a hospital visit when most pastors clock-in for those visits. But, I will say that, when Dr. B followed Bill's statement, he preached the best cross-referenced expository, historical sermon I have ever heard.

He went verse by verse though the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. He gave "Rob Bell" quality historical background in about 30 seconds. He concluded that God saves those who trust in Him. Then, he put a message on the big screen that read, "If the blessing of the Old Testament is prosperity, then the blessing of the New Testament is persecution." And he preached an entirely separate expository sermon on the Stoning of Stephen and how dedicated Christians will die for their faith in Christ as their good reward for believing the truth and that this, too, is a blessing.

How's that for watered-down Bible preaching?

After that night, I concluded that Willow's critics had slacked on their homework. When I asked my question, I wasn't thinking of whether I would agree or disagree with Bill's answer. I just wanted to know what he had to say in response to what people had told me about him. Unlike many of his critics, I found out what Bill thought in no uncertain terms and in person. So did everyone else in the room. I was 19 years old.

A few years later, Bill brought his Muslim friend, Milo, to the stage. I watched the interview twice, first on the TV in the lobby. Bill preached the gospel of Jesus to this Muslim man, in front of 4,500 people, four different times, and the man kept coming back to do it again!

Later, I learned that a nearby pastor, who had not been at the gathering and had not invited any Muslim friends to his services that I am aware of, accused Bill of not much short of teaching heresy. But if Bill was teaching heresy, then why hadn't I heard any heresy in either of the two interviews with Milo?

The people who told me the local controversy didn't even know Milo's name. When they heard about it he was only reported as "a Muslim brought into the church ...of all places!"

For the record, that other pastor who criticized Bill for bringing in Milo is a good preacher. He introduced me to the problem of covetousness. As I say, I learn lessons from everyone.

In these years I began to realize how many Christians don't truly know each other. They talk about each other, but rarely do they talk to each other. It would seem that Bible experts' Bibles seem to have omitted Matthew 18 and James 1; first listen, then speak. The Bible is not the problem with Christians—it's the opinionated slackers with podiums.

Rob Bell had some fantastic messages in his day. Many good things could be said about him, making a fair and credible critique. Instead, people read his books, then critiqued his leadership. After college, I was hungry to meet more of these Christians whom I had grown up being so afraid of.

My travels took me to Christian Reformed Churches, other Willow Creek Association congregations, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, the [Toronto Blessing, holy laughter] Airport Road Christian Fellowship in Toronto—and no one laughed, until I showed up and took my hat off.

After a few years of traveling the States, Obama went to the White House and I went to Asia looking for work and more congregations to learn from.

Things didn't quite go so well with the Asian "Shame" and power-obsessed culture. If you're not familiar with that, use Google or ask an American Born Chinese what I'm talking about. Many American Christian leaders refuse to confront the Shame culture that many Asian Christians carry into the Church, making Matthew 18 problem solving impossible. Gossip is an epidemic in Asia where many people don't know how to apologize and forgive.

Many American Bible teachers have also thrown in the towel. If you try to confront Asian Shame culture, the Bible teachers venomously get in your way, all the while claiming that you are in the right.

Too terrible to be true? I say it's too funny to be fake. But I predicted it in 2010 and I watched it surface during 2014. The Generation Y (Premillennials) of Asia won't tolerate that Shame culture, Christian and non-Christian alike.

If those American Bible teachers want any credibility with the Gen Y of Asia, they'll need to pick up the torch they coerced others into throwing down and return to the truth that Asia's youth are parading: The forgiveness message of Jesus Christ can reach everyone, including Chinese-speaking Christians in Asia.

If that message could somehow reach Beijing, it could mean world peace for a decade. Too bad the professorate thinks it's impossible. Lucky for us, Asia's youth know better than the professors.

After thinking that I had seen it all, I couldn't figure out how to get Christians to talk to each other. I had spent a year doing a podcast and put it on pause when I started my first self-hosted WordPress blog. Still, it seemed that the Christians I knew in both America and in Asia had absolutely no interest in talking to each other apart from certified smallgroups and gossip about the pastor or whatever celebrity was being slammed by America's paparazzi that week. Few people seemed to be serious about much of anything. That was 2010.

Still, I was determined to find a way to get Christians to talk to each other. So, I found a way to make it happen: Fiction. My two Crossroads books, At the Day of Bapticost and At the Way and Churchianity, were my first. Choosing a Fiction genre, rather than a boring treatise, was my critique on the Church: Readers want stories more than teaching and Christians only reach across denominational lines in the fiction section.

Then, after I thought I'd seen it all and wrote the two stories, another thing happened: I met a living family member of Watchman Nee.

I won't go into the details, but I became thoroughly familiar with the "local church movement" of Nee and Lee. I've written about it. I respectfully part company over Lee's choice of terms "man becomes God", even though he adds the words "in fellowship, not in headship". I think the problem came more from English being Lee's second language, though I can say that his meaning is accurate in the Asian wide-scale concept of "being". (The definition of 'being' is more scalable in Chinese than in English.) The Christian Research Institute basically said the same thing in 2009, "We Were Wrong". I also echo what Hank Hanegraaff says, "While I clearly disagree with them on secondary issues, they are some of the most exemplary Christians I have ever met."

More than 20 years before, CRI had published that Lee was leading a cult. The Chinese Communists had already locked Nee in prison and threw away the key over the huge conflict Lee was involved with. I later learned, in Lee's last public speech before his passing, he apologized for the turmoil he contributed to. CRI eventually reevaluated the movement, published a correction, and recalled the books that labeled Lee as a cult leader. I've seen one of those books that was never turned in.

In my time with LC-Nee, I saw Christians have fellowship, Bible teaching, and worship with no leader, no single preacher, and no clergy. They are sharp, smart, dedicated, and they know Scripture better than any youth I grew up with. I wrote Clergy Don't Shepherd and the 95 Theses of the Clerical System to explain the concept as best I could. I wanted people to know the truth of what was really discovered in the underground Church of China.

I've had many more adventures, not as many as yet remain ahead. Developing websites, translating the Book of Revelation, negotiating manufacturing for clothing, importing tea grown in Asia, learning some of Bruce Lee's kung fu style, teaching myself Mandarin, surviving the incompetence of the failing political party that China asked the Communists to replace... my life has been interesting.
**History of the Pacific Daily Times**

Eventually, I began to learn about the legal problems in Asia. National governments usually don't understand foreigners living within their borders. Failing to understand means failing to write good laws. Failing to pass good laws means failing to invite law-abiding foreigners into the country.

Seeing this, I approached the government and drafted some laws that could help solve a number of problems, even more for citizens than for foreigners. Having only honest foreigners in a given country would help its citizens.

Knowing politics as I do, and after having personally followed the Sunflower Movement leaders out of their nation's Legislature, I predicted that Hong Kong's 2014 "Umbrella Movement" would fade away without Chinese military action and that the 2017 elections plans would remain unchanged. Whether you agree or disagree with what China did, my prediction was accurate.

I know how Asia works because I lived there. I know how democracy works because my father taught me that democracies require military service, which Hong Kong doesn't. Even Americans must register for the draft. Perhaps Americans would be easier to control if that requirement was removed—a likeable but dangerous idea.

With this diverse background, I was in a position to do editing work and oversee the broad topic and skill ranges necessary to start a new info hub on the web. But my syndication began a few years before I ever started the Pacific Daily Times.

I had been toying with cartooning, another thing I was learning in my journeys. When China and Japan were squabbling over an uninhabited island, I made a political cartoon that poked fun at everyone. The editor of a growing online newspaper website saw the comic and invited me to contribute. My first syndication was at China Daily Mail.

After a while, writing about topics relating to politics and Asia seemed constrictive. There were also American and Christian-related articles I wanted to write. My mind was bursting at the seams.

After some progress with the Pacific Daily Times website, I needed a subtitle for the site—something to describe the mission and put in the browser title bar.

I had been watching an older video where Steve Jobs introduced the "Think different" campaign a few weeks after he returned to Apple. He talked about roots of Apple, their target customers, and how to explain themselves to the public.

One night, I was mulling over some different phrases for the Times that included words like "new" and "journalism". While many marketing guys might have liked those words, they didn't really describe the mission. In the video from the 1990's, Jobs had just dismissed several advertising companies and was working with a consultant group. I wasn't interested in traditional marketing any more than Jobs.

This provides some insight into how I go through the process of innovation for many different things, from political policy to how Christians can work together to branding to designing new products. I drench myself it data, then I do something like go surfing or hang out with some friends down the street. Newton wasn't expecting the apple to fall when it did, but he was surrounded by academics in that university courtyard. The apple didn't hit him on the head, by the way. But he did see it fall. And that's all he needed.

So, not having found a mission phrase, I went out for the evening to be with some friends. During that time, I had to help my friends with some conflict. I acted as the mediator and it didn't seem the most conducive environment for getting an inspiration, at least in the opinions of some. But, as a writer who must overcome writer's block on a daily basis, I can tell you: Problems are the best way to find inspiration. And our creative God loves to give us inspirational fuel.

I helped my friends get to know each other, and, the rest, as the Times say, is recent history.

Pacific was my region because, while I understand Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, my understanding is not enough to write to those audiences or edit those who do. "Pacific" means that the Times targets readers who live in countries that touch the Pacific Ocean. Of course, any readers are welcome. Targets need to be narrow.

The Times doesn't only write about those countries, but to the people in those countries about anything that could relate to their lives. Writing about someone and to someone are not the same thing.

This may be one of the defining characteristics that sets the Pacific Daily Times apart from both online newspapers and blogs. A newspaper is generally location-specific and primarily reports events that occur within its locality, secondarily publishing opinion and events in other locations that readers within that locality may be interested in. Blogs, multiuser and individual author blogs alike, tend to address specific topics, whether ideas or events, and sometimes regions are the topics, such as with China Daily Mail.

The Pacific Daily Times, however, delivers information and opinion on the goings on within worldwide locations, finding specialization within certain topics and authoring content that is relevant to an audience within a specific location—the Pacific.

This difference may seem moot, but it will make a greater difference somewhere down the road and it will prevent the Times from being a direct competitor of both topical blogs and local online newspapers. The Pacific Daily Times may even be a platform through which blogs and newspapers can increase their reach, especially since people in different communities are growing more and more interested in getting to know each other.

There are many topics and problems to address within the "Pacific". Established mass media institutions are in for a shakeup as the digital age will refuse to support companies that have good equipment, but lack quality analysis of the times. When institutions have outlived their usefulness, they start to get distracted.

Our Premillennial Era looks over the whole of history for understanding. A new reading audience is rising up, which is not interested in the most breaking news of any current event, but the most ignorance-shattering interpretations of history up through the current day. And, tomorrow, to do it all over again.

PacificDailyTimes.com

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**About the Author**

Jesse Steele is an American writer in Asia who wears many hats. He learned piano as a kid, studied Bible in college, and currently does podcasting, web contenting, cloud control, and brand design. He likes golf, water, speed, music, kung fu, art, and stories.

Jesse owns various brands, occasionally teaches writing and piano, and preaches the evangels of Linux, Open-Source, and Jesus.

Today's news, yesterday.™

Email:  books@jessesteele.com

JesseSteele.com

Other Books by Jesse Steele

Bapticost: At the Crossroads (Act I)

The People's Party: A Blueprint for American Political Revival

Memoirs of Ophannin

Clergy don't Shepherd: God 101

The Four Planes

Monkeys in the Jungle: Why Some Trees Just Won't Grow

21: The Last Night with Taiwan's Sunflower Movement

The End: A Bible Translation of John's Revelation
