As of this evening, half the lights of the Menorah will have been lit, the seventh window on the Advent Calendar will have been opened. It’s already time for part 4 of the Generous December Group Writing Project. Events are well-underway, but I guess it is too easy to be carried away on a wave of enthusiasm too early.
There can be a downside to charitable giving. Kelly the Nonprofiteer sent me a link about thinking critically about how charities are administrated and what, in the end, they actually accomplish. That is exactly why I chose not to make the Generous …read more

Image source.
Today is the Feast Day of St. Nicholas. Children in the Netherlands and here in Germany, and perhaps elsewhere, cleaned their shoes before they went to bed, put them outside the door and started to wait. Here, the patron Saint of Children is seen in many ways. He can be the coca-cola colored Santa, he can be a bishop in a tall miter. He can be dressed in the sackcloth robes of a monk who has been wandering from place to place with a sack of nuts and dried fruit to nourish hungry children.
It’s the perfect occasion to …read more

“Blogging is so 2005,” a programmer friend of mine recently said.
I’ve worked in internet content since 1996, so comments like that never surprise me.  And, to a certain extent, it is true.  In the Internet business, there’s always something new to learn and a new way to interact with internet users (we all participate in it, afterall).
 
Still, when I heard about Albert the Urban Monk’s charity challenge meme (the more people who participate in the meme, the more he donates), I was surprised. It challenged me to get to the heart of my motivation to keep blogging. If the blogosphere came to end, what would I like Babylune to be …read more