Enter the Rainbow Makes News - With TYPO

Hey! Imagine my surprise when I saw my picture on the front page of the Missouri Conference Review this week! (A picture that features my big, round old glasses and my hair at a very awkward length, I might add.) Enter the Rainbow was featured in an article about blogging that was in the newspaper of the Missouri Annual Conference. You can read a .pdf version of the paper by clicking here.

AND BE SURE TO NOTE THE TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR IN THE WORST POSSIBLE PLACE - THE ADDRESS OF MY BLOG!!!!! Apparently the article wants us to Enter the Reainbow, rather than the Rainbow. Problem with typos in website addresses is, your computer can't just read past the mistake and go ahead and take you to the correct website. It pretty much just looks agog at you and says "Duh ... I never heard of that one before. Here, let's go to this pretty error page, instead!"

The article also talks about the blogs of my friend Becky, a probationary elder from Sedalia now living in England named Sarah Hamilton, and Susan Cox-Johnson, one of Missouri's District Superintendents. There is also a very wonderful article Frank Santoro, who blogged about his journey through cancer.

This is weird, all this new attention paid to the blogosphere - there was recently a feature article about Shane Raynor in the national edition of the United Methodist Review, now at our conference level there is a front page story about blogging. It makes me wonder about what having the attention of the old school print media does to (or for) blogs.

Perhaps newspaper attention will begin to make the blogosphere more "mainstream." Then I've gotta ask, "Is that a good thing?" Maybe bloggers are happier with that cutting edge status. On the other hand, having articles about blogs in newspapers is likely to boost the number of readers that we get. OF COURSE, THAT WOULD BE TRUE ONLY IF THE PAPER GETS THE BLOG ADDRESS CORRECT IN THE ARTICLE. But more readers mean more comments - and bloggers do love comments!

One thing is sure, as blogging has grown and changed over this brief time span, a true sense of community has formed, and continues to form. It is a community unlike anything I have ever experienced before. And as I have always said, though it will never replace a face to face conversation over a cup of coffee, blogging really does enhance the way we communicate with one another.

So here I am, blogging about a newspaper article about blogging. I can only hope that the next edition of the Missouri Conference Review prints an address correction in big, bold, print right on the banner headline of the front page! ;)