Be of good cheer, little pup, for thou too in resurrection shall have a little golden tail. ~Martin Luther @revdeaconb
About Bryan J.
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A Very Brady Holy Week
The most famous episode of The Brady Bunch is the one where Marcia takes a football to the nose.[1] In the beginning of the episode, she is asked out by the school’s star football player and breaks off a date with her friend Charley, a rather unremarkable suitor by comparison. In breaking off the date, […]
Another Week Ends: Shameful Leggings, Artificial Intimacy, Gangs of Ecuador, Obituaries for the Cancelled, and Why We Procrastinate
It’s been #Seculosity Week if you’ve been following us on social media, with interviews and op-eds popping up all over the place. Check out DZ’s interviews with Mbird friend Scott Jones over on the Give and Take podcast, and the 1517 crew’s Banned Books podcast. And in the ICYMI category, #Seculosity made the Washington Post last […]
Another Week Ends: Hipster Conformity, Mononucleosis, Greek Basketball Coaching, Curated Imperfection, and The Secular Work Ethic
1. Tis the season for sickness. B.D. McClay over at The Hedgehog Review got mono, and while the short term result was a bout of feverish nightmares, excruciatingly painful swallowing, thundering headaches, and seemingly unending fatigue, the long term result was this marvelous essay: “The Ills That Flesh Is Heir to.” Her essay is a […]
Another Week Ends: Benedictine Tech Startups, Lusty Boozy Priests, Timehop, Maximal Atonement, and #MbirdTyler19
Too much good news for one week: announcing today that early registration for our annual Mockingbird conference in Tyler, TX is opening Monday! Join us for #MbirdTyler19 as we explore “The Future of Grace”. It’s a totally different Mockingbird experience from any other gathering we host, and we can’t wait to reconnect with all our […]
Raised by Narcissists and the Law of Reconciliation
“God is telling me to tell you to forgive your parents.” AS EMBARRASSING as it is to admit, those words came from my mouth at age 20. The girl I was dating at the time was desperate to move out of her house, away from her physically and emotionally abusive parents. We were in a […]
Another Advent Ends: Anxiety Baking, Swearing Santa, Authoritarian Sociology, Muscatine Friendship, Multitasking in Marriage, and a Gift of Dentures.
OF COURSE Advent isn’t over yet! But the intrepid team of writers and editors here at Mockingbird are taking a well-deserved break for the next couple of weeks. The blog and the office are transitioning into holiday mode, so expect things to be slow around here till January 3. If you’re interested in charitable giving […]
New Parties for the Age of Social Media
Who actually flies to Vegas for a bachelor party? I’m not being mean or judgmental here. I really want to know. Who has that kind of money to spend on a friend? I mean, if you’re living in LA and Vegas is only 4 car hours away, make like The Hangover and have a good (and […]
Another Week Ends: Silicon Valley #Seculosity, Airborne Absolution, Big Law Kills, Maslow's Smartphone, Stan Lee's Humor, and True Detective Pikachu
Wrapping up the latest from the week, we’d be remiss not to recap the biggest news, which is that DZ’s new book Seculosity is now available for your pre-ordering pleasure! For a preview of the content, go here, and to get in your pre-order, go here. (According to those ‘in the know,’ pre-orders are actually what make […]
Another Week Ends: Divine Dad Jokes, Social Media Dark Ages, Millennial Marriages, Cher's SOS, and a Swimming Pool Full of Sprinkles
1. It’s the experience economy, in case you haven’t heard. In a previous vocation, that was the mantra by which we were expected to “pivot” our future plans. The new experience entrepreneurs have likely set up shop in your neighborhood too: we just got our first axe-throwing range to compliment our smashing-pottery-therapy studio and our […]
Another Week Ends: Taking Life for Granted, Eating Sin, Middle School Materialism, Death by Jaywalking, Moth Jokes, and the Joy of Things You'll Never Master
1. Let’s start off at Digg, another web venture focused on curating the best of the web for a specialized audience. For the unfamiliar, Digg is to Reddit as Myspace is to Facebook, it was one of the web’s earliest “vote on the stories you like” style websites. Steve Rousseau, the senior editor at this rebooted […]
Can Jordan Peterson Walk Away from Omelas?
Full disclosure: the point of this article is to get clicks. Lots of clicks. Because, love him or hate him, the Canadian psychology professor and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson gets clicks. And despite all our talk at Mockingbird about not keeping score, Google Analytics is real and we are sinners and clicks are the currency […]
Lance Armstrong's Moving Finish Line
Where were you in 2012 when Lance Armstrong confessed his steroid sins to St. Oprah? Did you immediately take off your 2004 (!) Livestrong wristband and trash it, or did you simply let it fall behind the bedroom dresser? Was it the talk of your town, or did it just confirm your lack of interest […]
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