Terra Extraneus

The Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act of 2007 imposed penalties on tax preparers if the tax return understates the taxes due to the government and the tax preparer knew or should have known. Most tax preparers will wisely avoid this problem by asking for less documentation from the client to avoid the “knew or should have known problem” and rely more on the representations made by clients. Thus, the government will actually reduce the accuracy of returns by blinding tax return preparers. This is a typical example of legislative over reaction.

But, some CPAs will panic and demand from their clients voluminous proofs, and no doubt, become defacto auditors for the government.

To avoid this problem, will CPAs need a duty of zeal to their clients ingrained into them through their ethics code as has been drilled into lawyers through theirs? In the meantime, taxpayers will have to determine who their non-attorney tax return preparer or tax advisor actually represents, them or the government?

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Another Jon Swift gem: “If O.J. Simpson Did It…Not!”

Swift says that after O.J.’s book, If I Did It, hits the stands, other books in the making include:
• If I Were Gay, by Tom Cruise
• If the War in Iraq was a Mistake, by George W. Bush
• If I Were a Racist, by George Allen and Trent Lott

I won’t spoil the rest, but Swift also suggests book titles for Tom DeLay, Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh. Have fun reading it.

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Nominations have opened for the 2006 Weblog Awards. Some observations:

• Terra Extraneus has been nominated for a Weblog Award. Ordinarily we would be delighted for any kind of recognition, but — neither Rod Heggy nor I own tuxes, and then there’s the whole thing about clearing space in the trophy case. More about our nomination in a moment.

• The Weblog Awards were launched in 2003 by Kevin Aylward, author of the popular Wizbang blog (about 30,000 visitors a day!). Last year almost half a million votes were cast in 37 categories. Here is more about the awards and how they work from Aylward.

• Nominations are made by the general public by entering a comment on the Weblog Award site. That means all the nominees and who nominated them are public information. Nominations close on Nov. 24, after which Aylward and the crack team of blog authorities he assembles will select 10 finalists in each category. Voting is conducted for 10 days in December, and any person on the planet with an Internet connection can vote once a day for 10 days. Vote totals are continuously updated on the site during the voting period.

• Terra Extraneus has been nominated in the “Best of the 1751-2500 Blogs” category. The name of that category is too big for a trophy — which works out fine, since no trophies are given. “1751-2500” refers to a blog’s rank in the blogosphere ecosystem. (I won’t attempt to explain the ecosystem here, except to refer you to The Truth Laid Bear.)

TerraX is currently ranked No. 2053. Out of the estimated 50 million blogs in the world? How in the heck did that happen? Well, if you knew, you’d be less than impressed. Okay, I’ll tell you. The rankings are based on incoming links. TTLB says TerraX has 154 incoming links — 154 other blogs link to us in their blogroll or elsewhere on their home page. Impressed? Don’t be. When we first opened for business last year, I immediately enrolled our blog in a couple of “blog networks” (e.g., Christian Bloggers). All the blogs in a network list each other on their sites, thus boosting each other’s incoming links. I could easily boost TerraX’s TTLB ranking some more just by enrolling in a couple more networks (Bald-Headed Bloggers? Bloggers Who Love Zydeco?). Personally, I think the TTLB rankings are meaningless and that blog traffic is the only stat that matters (our traffic is still at the slow trickle stage).

• Since nominations are made publicly, I know that TerraX was nominated by Jon Swift. Now that makes my day. Jon Swift is one of my favorite bloggers (See “What If Archie Bunker Were a Blogger?”), and his blog is a “must read” on the TerraX blogroll. Thanks, Jon.

I see that Jon Swift has been nominated in four categories so far: best new blog, best humor blog, best individual blog, and best in the 501-1000 category. That’s all fine and dandy, but I imagine Jon has been miffed that he hasn’t been nominated in the one category that matters to him most: “best conservative blog.” Well, I rectified that oversight this morning by making the nomination myself. “Jon Swift is the voice of conservative America,” I wrote. “When it comes to conservative blogs, Jon Swift is as good as it gets.” I really mean that, Jon.

• I see that the “Best Religious Blog” category has been dropped this year. There was no such category in 2003 and 2004, but last year the category was created and the award went to Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost. Haven’t seen an explanation why the category has been axed this year. Congratulations, Joe. They apparently have retired the category in your honor, making you the Best Religious Blog for all eternity.

• Kevin Aylward, Supreme Ruler of the Weblog Awards, says winning the award comes down to aggressive PR. In an Online Journalism Review report, Aylward was quoted as saying:

“It’s a popularity contest. The question is can blog A get more readers to vote than blog B?”

Gee whiz, if Blog A and Blog B are already out there pounding the pavement for votes, Rod and I better start formulating our campaign strategy (just in case we make the finals). Let’s see — how about some campaign promises. That’s always a great way to fire up voters. So, here is TerraX’s campaign pledge if you vote us the best darn 1751-2500 blog in the world:

TERRA EXTRANEUS’ 2006 WEBLOG AWARDS CAMPAIGN PROMISE:

If elected, TerraX promises to win the war, bring our troops home immediately, slash taxes, put a lid on health care costs, and eliminate global warming.

There’s something in there for just about everybody. So how about it? Can we count on your vote?

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Wanna be more popular? It’s easy. Surf over to Popularity Dialer and sign up for a free call. You pick the date and time – like when you’re going to be at a party, elbow-to-elbow with people who will be really impressed that you actually got a call. At the specified time, your phone rings with a taped dialog. You ad lib your half of the conversation and Voila! You’re popular!

This is a joke, right? Not exactly. Popularity Dialer is a real deal. It is the project of two students at New York University’s ITP. ITP? Interactive Telecommunications Program. Am I going too fast? You didn’t even know there was a field of study called “interactive telecommunications?” From ITP’s website:

ITP is different. More than just a graduate school, ITP is a creative ecosystem - a living and interdependent flow of people, projects, ideas and applications all dedicated to exploring and expanding the ability of real people to use media to connect to one another and influence the world around them.

NYU-ITP offers classes on such subjects as “Rapid Protyping for Social Software,” “Social Weather,” “Interactive 3D and Virtual Spaces,” “Internet Civilization,” and “Cellphonia.” You know, a couple of those classes actually sound pretty interesting. I wanna play. Guess you could say ITP is the intersection of geekdom and cool.

But I’m not so sure about Popularity Dialer. Looks to me like most people’s phones already ring enough. It never occurred to me that a ringing phone indicates popularity. When I see/hear somebody’s cell phone ring, my thoughts run to:
* Does the spouse keep you on a pretty short lease?
* Are you a sales profession?
* Time to pay your cell phone bill, huh?
* Could you possibly have chosen a more annoying ring tone?

One thought that never crossed my mind is, “Gee, you sure are popular!” Guess that’s the difference between my 50-ish perspective and that of two kids at NYU.

(Hat Tip: Lifehacker)

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A 62-year-old British woman has given birth to a son. She is a child psychiatrist, which may come in handy.

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Did you see this 1½-minute video when it made the e-mail and blog rounds a few months ago? Came across it just now while clearing out old emails, and can’t resist sharing. Morning Musume is Japan’s top-of-the-charts pop-music girl group. This clip is from a TV special in which the girls outdo anything we’ve seen so far on U.S. reality TV. If you’re a tad squeamish, you might want to take a pass on this one. Here’s the link (by the way, yes, that’s thick cuts of meat attached to their foreheads): Girls Meet Lizard.

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A French man was fined $262,700 this week for attacking a urinal with a hammer.

Must be some urinal! You bet it is. A porcelain fixture manufactured by J. L. Mott Ironworks of New York in 1917. The urinal, now on display in a Paris art museum, has an estimated value of around $4 million.

Fountain is the most beloved work of French artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp, a leader of the Dada school of art, bought the urinal, scrawled the signature “R. Mutt” on its surface, and submitted it to an art show (it was rejected). In 2004 a poll of 500 British arts figures declared Fountain the most influential work of art of the 20th century. (Here’s a photo of Fountain, in case you’ve never seen one).

Earlier this month Pierre Pinoncelli took a hammer to the urinal, cracking it slightly. A Paris court this week handed Pinoncelli a three-month suspended sentence and the stiff fine. It’s not the first time Pinoncelli attacked Fountain. In 1993 he urinated in it.

What’s Pinoncelli’s problem with Duchamp’s plumbing masterpiece? Pinoncelli says he doesn’t have a problem with Fountain at all. Pinoncelli, 77, is a performance artist who says he was paying tribute to the work by participating with it. “I wanted to pay homage to the Dada spirit,” Pinoncelli testified at his trial. Pinoncelli’s argument is that his attack on Fountain constitutes another work of art.

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was a Frenchman who spent most of his life in New York City, creating “ready-made” art works (every-day objects which become art by being declared to be so) and playing chess. Duchamp called his art “anti-art” because it mocked traditional art and art standards. Dada “anti-art” is absurdist art and an early cousin of abstract expressionism. Other famous Duchamp works include The Bicycle Wheel (1913), which is – well, you know – a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool, and In Advance of a Broken Arm (1915), which is a snow shovel.

Another Duchamp masterpiece, L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), is a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, with the addition of a moustache and goatee. When the letters of the work’s title are pronounced out loud in French, they form a phrase which refers lustily to Mona Lisa’s derriere.

In other words, Pinoncelli has been found guilty of vandalizing the art of an artist who has been hailed for creating art which the artist himself called anti-art because it mocked art by, for example, imagining the vandalization of traditional art. It’s a strange world.

By the way, the Fountain on display in Paris is not the original. The original has long since been lost. Duchamp did the world a huge favor in 1964, at age 77, by creating several reproductions. That’s right, the urinal in Paris, worth several million dollars, is only a reproduction of the original urinal masterpiece.

What would Duchamp himself say about Pinoncelli’s attack on his beloved Fountain? The artist once wrote:

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

Sounds to me that, were Duchamp alive today, he might be quite content with Pinoncelli “adding his contribution.” If not, of course, he could just reproduce another one. There’s always another urinal waiting to be declared a masterpiece.

Pinoncelli said he will appeal this week’s court decision. The world breathlessly awaits the outcome.

If only Frances Schaeffer were alive to see this.

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Rod Heggy and I have been friends since our teenage days and partners on numerous projects during our adult lives. Today, 35 years after our friendship began, we begin our latest collaboration: the Terra Extraneus blog.

Terra extraneus is Latin for “strange world,” as in the phrase, usually said while shaking one’s head, “It’s a strange world!” Actually, our view isn’t quite as dismal as that phrase suggests (well, maybe Rod’s is, but mine isn’t). Depending on how you look at it, this strange world we live in can be a source of dismay or of comedic relief. I imagine Rod and I will be looking at things from both of those perspectives on Terra Extraneus.

Rod and I first met in 1971 as members of the youth groups of sister churches. Soon we crossed paths in a second way as high school speech and debate competitors. Rod went on to become an attorney and today he heads a successful practice. I entered the ministry and have spent much of my adult life as a pastor. I also have worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and paralegal.

Rod and I are evangelical Christians, meaning that we believe Jesus is the living Son of God and our Lord and Savior. But don’t be too quick to pigeonhole our personalities or our politics based on that confession. We may surprise you.

We launch Terra Extraneus to discuss “news, morality, law and faith.” Our discussion, of course, reflects our perspectives as two men, one an attorney and the other a pastor, who are long-time friends and fellow Christians. Actually, we have already been having this discussion between ourselves for years. Today we invite you to listen in — and to add your own comments, if you wish.

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