• R.U. Sirius mentioned it on the h+ website, which is AWESOME!
• Scienceandreligiontoday.com posted about it.
• The I Think I Believe blog thought it was “genius”!
• And Humantrip.net republished the press release verbatim. �

But it’s not just secularists that are curious.  Christians like it too!

• Dr. James McGrath, an associate professor of religion at Butler University mentioned it on his blog.
• There’s a thread on the OnlineBaptist.com message boards about it.
• Orthodoxchristianity.net posters found it amusing in this thread.
• The Talk.Origins usenet group discovered it as well.

Wow.  I love it!

Audiobook version coming soon.

I’m happy to announce today that I’ve released my first book. It’s called The _____ of _____ By Means of Natural _____ or the _____ of Favoured _____ In the Struggle For Life: King James Version.

I also set up a separate page for it on this site, so that I’d have a nice little landing page for it.

Basically, I wrote a PHP script that took Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and I had the script redact every word from Darwin which does not appear in the King James bible.

The resulting work is an amusing objet ‘d art. I think it says something about fundamentalism and language.  I also hope it says something about the absurdity of creationism, and the importance of science in how we understand the world.

It’s available now as a 204-page, perfect bound trade paperback.  A bargain, at a mere $13.25.

After the jump, the text of the press release I’ve been spreading around.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

After more than 150 years of controversy, a new version of Darwin’s famous The Origin of Species has appeared which might, once and for all, provide a way of reconciling evolution and creationism.  The _____ of _____  By Means Of Natural _____ or The _____ of Favoured _____ In the Struggle For Life: King James Version is the entire original text of Darwin’s monumental contribution to science, with every word which does not appear in the King James Bible safely redacted.

With more than 33,000 words blacked out, the text is virtually unreadable, making this new book more of an art object than a literary work, which is exactly what the editor, 34-year-old Ian Monroe, intended.

“I wanted people to reflect on the nature of language, and particularly on Fundamentalism, and the  notion of ‘the Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it,’ which seems to preclude most concepts in a modern worldview,” Monroe said.  “I also thought it would be pretty funny to actually see what it would look like if you could visually remove all those modern concepts.  And what better way than by filtering Darwin through the sieve of the Holy Bible?”

The new book has been released as a 204 page, trade paperback, and is available for purchase online now.  An electronic version is also available as a free download.  Monroe chose to publish it through Lulu.com, a leading publishing-on-demand service with a catalog of more than 300,000 titles.  “Since the book is based entirely on works in the public domain, I thought it was important to release it under a Creative Commons license, which was only possible by self-publishing,” Monroe said.  “Thankfully, unusual works like this can exist these days, but only because of the availability of publishing-on-demand, e-books, and other non-traditional publishing channels.”

###

Ian Monroe:  Ian Monroe is a journalist and computer expert in Chicago, Ill.  His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including h+ Magazine, the American Bar Association Journal, and the Orlando Weekly.  This is his first published book.  His book can be found at http://www.ianmonroe.com/index.php/portfolio/writing/the-_____-of-_____/  or   bit.ly/cvPLRv

Lulu.com: Lulu.com is the premier marketplace for digital content on the Internet, with over 300,000 recently published titles, and more than 4,000 new titles added each week, created by people in 80 different countries. Lulu is changing the world of publishing by enabling the creators of books, video, periodicals, multimedia and other content to publish their work themselves with complete editorial and copyright control. With Lulu offices in the US, Canada the UK and Europe, Lulu customers can reach the globe.

Media contact:

Ian Monroe
ian@ianmonroe.com
407-625-6942

Keywords: science, religion, Christianity, Bible, creationism, evolution, mash-up, Darwin, intelligent design, publishing-on-demand, public domain, copyright, creative commons, publishing

Animation by Evelyn Lee. Excellent work.

KANIZSA HILL from evelyn lee on Vimeo.

After J-school, I’m more convinced than ever that newspapers (ink on dead tree) are pretty much doomed, with the exception of some niches — free papers, alternative papers, hyperlocal neighborhood papers.

Even among my journalist friends, I can’t think of anyone that has an actual subscription to a dead-tree daily newspaper.

Anyway, enjoy the video.

Here in the midwest, there’s a local custom of playing a beanbag-tossing game known as “Cornhole”.  If you ever find yourself in a tailgating situation around here, you’ll see lots of people playing it.  In fact, it’s so popular, there’s even a group called the American Cornhole Association that’ll tell you the official rules, and hosts tournaments.  They even have a website at playcornhole.org.

So I thought of a game that could be played as a supplement to cornhole.  I’m calling it “Kick My Balls”.

The principle is pretty simple:

You use a standard basketball and basketball hoop attached to a plywood backboard.  The net is tied at the bottom to hold the ball.  The ball starts out cradled in the net.  The player kicks the ball through the bottom of the net, and tries to get it to land back in the net.  If the player is successful, they are assigned points based on the height the ball reached.  If the ball lands outside the net, no points are awarded, and the player has to run after and retrieve the ball.

The diagram is self-explanatory. I suggest painting the background with caricatures of unpopular political figures

P.S., since this is the second invention I’ve posted, I’m going to make a new category for them.

I’m now a Master of Science in Journalism.

I’m still looking for some full time work, but I’ve managed to get a couple of freelance projects that will keep me fed and housed for a couple of months.  I’ll post more about them as they get closer to completion.

So, additional freelance projects seem like a good idea at this point.  It seems wise to split my job-search time between full time positions and additional freelance gigs, at least for the time being.

And it’s almost X-mas.  Hope you’re having a good one!

The project has been about obituaries in print and online, and about how obituaries drive readership to local media outlets.

One of the two major pieces of the project was to produce a report on the state of obituaries in America these days.  I had a pretty large hand in this aspect of the project, as I was one of the primary authors of the report.  I’m happy to say that today, that report has been released.

From the obitresearch.com blog about the project:

“To better understand the nature of our project and the role of Legacy.com in today’s obituary publishing industry, the Fall 2009 Interactive Innovation Project team at the Medill School of Journalism has been diligently researching the history and trends of American obituary writing. We have summarized our findings in a report that we have released this morning. In this report, we examine the nature of the contemporary American obituary, a phenomenon that constitutes an important content category for modern newspapers – and, increasingly, for publishers in other media.”

Read the full post here.

Download the report (PDF).

UPDATE: Oh, hey, look at this — we got a mention on the Washington Post Post Mortem blog!

UPDATE 2: Another mention, from an Editor & Publisher blog!

UPDATE 3: An article about the report appeared in the Vancouver Sun.

UPDATE 4 (12/8/2009): A story about the report appeared on the Northwestern University website.  We also got a link from Romenesko on Poynter.org

UPDATE 5 (12/11/2009): The AP wrote a story about the report, mentioning me by name.  That AP story has gotten republished all over, and even ended up on NPR’s Morning Edition.  Today, Michael S. Malone did an opinion piece for ABC News, which also mentions our report prominently.  Another article on Canada.com.  Oh, hey, look at this!  My buddy Jeff Billman wrote it up for a blog on the Philadelphia City Paper.  Here’s another article on Examiner.com.

This may be the last pleasant day until spring. And pleasant it is, indeed. This is Loyola Park, in north Chicago.