Roller Derby, what is the big deal?

It has been interesting to watch the Roller Derby Reverend story progress.  Along the way there have been a number of comments left on sites along the lines of "what is the big deal" about being a roller girl. Sometimes talking about how other ministers participate in other semi-pro or pro sports.  Well, if you are one of those folks I would suggest checking out this article about Roller Derby Names.  The question in the article being something along the lines of "do we want our sport to be taken seriously?" and giving examples of how the sport can sometimes be not so family friendly.  I am really glad that the Derby City Roller Girls are a great family friendly league.

The story was picked up by CNN, but they post a shorter version of the story.  Also, they got rid of any suspense and imply declared in the title that a Pastor came out as a Roller Derby girl.  Last I checked the short version of the story only had a few hundred Facebook shares, and not the 10,000+ shares the original story has.  The CNN version cutting out the "moment of acceptance" which is what I think made the original story so great.

In addition to Facebook it has been shared by Feministe as the Holy Roller (a name Liv Fearless considered but rejected). It also made it to Fark.  It even sparked a theological question for the Roller Derby commissioner.

It has been great to see people asking about Unitarian Universalism, and Roller Derby, and hopefully everyone has learned a bit about both.  It has been really great to see a positive new piece be so popular.  For CNN it was in the top 100 stories in a 24 hour period, and was the top in their lifestyle category. 


Update 9/27/2011:
Another version on YouTube: Local Reverend rolls out big secret this version is the full WHAS version minus the context of the actual news cast.

Another post I will be checking on to see the commentary (but likely won't create an account) is Would your (church?) hire a Roller Derby Girl to be a Senior Minister?  The way the question is framed it isn't really what happened (she was not involved with Roller Derby while a candidate), but could be interesting.

My wife is in the news

I have a few nitpicks with the story, but overall i think they did a good job: Local reverend rolls out big secret.

TV show Theology

The questions was asked: "What tv shows get you thinking about theology and ethics the most?"

In terms of theology I would have to go with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or most any vampire show. The vampire mythos involve mechanics based on theology and so certain questions arise. Would a vampire recoil from any symbol of faith (chalice, cross, star of David, etc.)? Can all clergy create Holy Water? Does the symbol of faith have an inherent power over vampires, or is it the faith of the person wielding it that imbues it with the power? If it is the wielder then would an atheist have any symbol? If someone saw that certain holy items protected against vampires would they still be an atheist? In the context of Buffy some of these questions are answered, so the question then becomes if "you" were writing a vampire tale how would you handle these questions. What aspects of the vampire mythos would need to change to be consistent with your worldview?

Mobile site

I have set up a mobile site at http://m.uupdates.net/.  I had already set up a css for small screens, but it was not working on my new phone.  If anyone with a mobile phone could let me know how the new mobile site looks I would appreciate it.

Better mobile version on the horizon.

Down for maintenance

Minor issue with the new host (mostly my own fault) will cause some downtime tonight should be starting at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. I am getting to know the new hosting offering. I went with http://myhosting.com/ because they had a pretty good deal on VPS plans. So far, not so bad., a lot to like but customer service seems difficult to get a hold of. If you are going the VPS route with them be prepared to fend for yourself. On the plus side you have lots of power, on the down side you can use that power to shoot yourself in the foot. Kinda like I did. What the company lack in service is made up in the offering. The CPU, RAM, etc. for the price is way better than any other VPS (with a decent track record) I could find. Downtime is expected to be anywhere from an hour to two (hopefully not much more).

Hosting Migration

UUpdates is migrating to a new host. Unless you are a big fan of the Wiki (and judging by the usage no one was) you probably won't even notice the change. Or hopefully you won't. If anything seems odd or there are hiccups in the process please let me know.