What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • 10 Things Gay People Still Need

    Once the law changes and we have access to marriage, is that it? Will equality have been achieved? Will we suddenly have become full citizens? Will the job be done?

    Here’s my run down of what we still need.

    • We need it to be impossible for the authorities to accept a plea less than murder in a suspected homophobic killing where the defendants admit killing the deceased with a hammer in his own home. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24122514. I guess that means a review of hate crime legislation at least in Northern Ireland.
    • We need to be safe when we travel – that means building on the good work that this country has done in terms of foreign policy, but a review here wouldn’t do any harm either. Oh, and trade deals do need to be linked to human rights. (Yes, LGBT rights are human rights, where have you been?)
    • We need to keep working for marriage equality. We’re getting a step towards it – a massive step towards it, but it ain’t equality and equality is what we are after, right? Interesting question for the various gay rights organisations this – will they still work towards equal marriage once this legislation has gone though. They know this is a pragmatic compromise – will they keep up the fight? – and no, I’m not talking about mixed-sex civil partnerships.
    • We need an urgent comprehensive review of all religious exemptions from legislation.
    • We need better age appropriate sex education in schools.
    • We need access to education free from prejudice.
    • We need further work done by companies and institutions on supporting gay folk at work especially in order to develop access to leadership positions where LGBT people have not found these easy to access.
    • We need appropriate representation in the media.
    • We need the Archbishop of Canterbury to commit to supporting his senior gay clergy and work to undermine the systems which keep so many of them in lacy but impeccable closets.
    • We need Hollywood to understand that we don’t all end up dead or heartbroken – Brokeback Mountain, I’m talking about you.

    Have I missed anything?

    ,

8 responses to “How to write a blog #1”

  1. chris Avatar
    chris

    I’m afraid I hate using WordPress. I struggle with it every time I have to update the church site – maybe I’m more interested in having an easy place to say what I want to than in fiddling with the layout!

    Gosh. That sounds somehow superior. Not meant! 😉

    Reply
  2. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    If you want complete control you can host your own wordpress site on your own server (which is what I do)

    I have always wondered why Safari stops and thinks for 30 seconds or more before your blog begins to load. Now I know why.

    Reply
  3. Jackie Avatar
    Jackie

    If you are a student (particularly if you are doing a PhD), starting a new blog is an ideal way to procrastinate.

    Reply
  4. Gareth J M Saunders Avatar
    Gareth J M Saunders

    @Chris – I notice that you use Blogspot (which is owned by Google). I struggle every time I have to use Blogspot, which is only very occasionally when assisting other people with their blogs. I’d go with WordPress every time, but then I’ve been using it for years and years, since version 0.6 (it’s currently at 3.0.1). I guess it’s partly what you’re familiar with. My top tip, if it helps, is simply being aware of the difference between posts (news-like articles that are time-dependent) and pages (mostly static content).

    @David – I’m writing this in Safari. I didn’t find any delay in Safari serving up Kelvin’s blog. There are many reasons why you might get a delay, including time of day, your own connection speed, what else is hosted on the same server, etc. I host my own WordPress blog too, and since moving to a new host it’s been lightning fast.

    Reply
  5. Stewart Avatar
    Stewart

    Writing a blog can be difficult.

    Since June 2004 I have had an on-line photo album via fotopic, which allows me to show may photographs and put in a little story about them.

    Them along came Kelvin at St Mary’s in May 2006, and Kimberley’s “Bloggers and Bluebells” event in May 2007, which re-invigorated my fotopic activities. Although I have a Flickr account, I still prefer fotopic for my photographs. Moving forward to the Facebook era (again following a blog from Kelvin) and another means of displaying photographs. Then at Christmas 2008 I started the Pencefn blog on wordpress.

    I like to write items that are illustrated with photos I have taken, most times cross linking a blog posting to a fotopic collection. However even with the best intentions, I do not manage to establish the discipline to publish as often as I would like.

    One rich theme I have is travelogs from my trips, this does take time, selecting the most appropriate pictures for fotopic, and writing (what I think is interesting) for WordPress.

    Would I started blogging without see Kelvin – not sure, probably not. Thank you Kelvin for introducing me to blogging, even if it took me several years to start writing my own.

    Reply
  6. RevRuth Avatar
    RevRuth

    I used to use Blogger but I found it a bit clunky and prone to large quantities of the kind of spam which a priest really ought not to be promoting, if you get what I mean. Despite several complaints they did nothing about it and so I migrated to WordPress. I love it. I’m sure I could do more with it than I do (change the appearance from time to time) but for a novice it is just perfect.

    Reply
  7. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    @Gareth – perhaps I misunderstood the Padre. (I often misunderstand many things in English!) I took the comment that he was hosting a blog on his own server to mean he had the blog on a computer serving as a server in his own home/office.

    I have tested Kelvin’s blog on Camino, Firefox, and Google Chrome. There is a definite lag as the browser sits there waiting for a response to the request for the page. The only other blog I see that with is Padre Bosco’s blog, Liturgy, in New Zealand.

    My service is 4 Meg DSL from my cable provider.

    It could be that I am in North America. That little country with the drug war located just south of the Statesonians, Mexico. Blogger blogs load instantly, but that is likely because no matter where the blogger is located in the world, the blog is hosted on Google’s servers in the US. So those blogs are physically near to my location when compared to a blog actually hosted somewhere in Europe or New Zealand.

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      The server I use is not in my office. Its a vps located in Manchester, Englandshire.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Last Night – World AIDS Day Service

    The AIDS Day service was very moving last night. It is troubling how much the organisers feel that they have to emphasise that everyone is welcome, “even though it is in a church”. The choir stalls were taken up by a fabulous women’s drumming group which made me wonder whether the stone that was rolled…

  • 1 December 2006

    Glasgow’s service for World AIDS Day 7 pm – St Mary’s Cathedral, 300 Great Western Road. All Welcome

  • To the Kirk

    Spent last evening with the Ecumenical Relations Committee of the Glasgow Presbytery. They had asked me along to talk about The Usual Topic. It was a good evening with lots of questions and discussion. The Presbytery had just last week had a vote about whether or not ministers should be free to bless gay couples…

  • Psinging the Psalms

    Interlocutor: Provost, where has the thingy gone after the psalm? Me: What thingy? The doxology? Interlocutor: Yes the thingy that goes: “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.” That thingy. The answer to…