Philocrites

First time visitor?

by Philocrites

Updated! If you are visiting Philocrites for the first time, welcome! If "blog" is a relatively new part of your vocabulary, or if the page you're looking at seems a bit mystifying, consider this a brief introduction.

This site's "front page" — which you see when you type "www.philocrites.com" into your Web browser, or when you click "Philocrites" or "Home" at the top of this page — features three columns. My writing appears in reverse chronological order in the wide column on the left, so the most recent material is always at the top of the page. Older posts drop off the bottom after a week or so, but can always be found through the archive.

Each "post" (or blog entry) also exists as an individual Web page on this site. Clicking the time of day at the bottom of an entry or the title at the top of the entry when you're reading the front page will take you to an entry's permanent home. On some blogs, you'll see "permalink": That's the link to the permanent home of the entry. When you want to tell other people about something you found interesting, copy the URL or Web address of that permanent home; that address will work even after the entry has vanished from the front page.

At the top of every page, you'll see a dark blue bar with yellow links. You'll find more information about me, a list of my most recent published work (primarily in UU World), my scrapbook (a companion blog of links to articles in magazines and newspapers), my photos, this site's archives, a search tool, even more links, information about advertising on this site through Google's AdWords program, and a link to my email.

On the right hand side of the front page is a sidebar with two columns of regularly updated content, links to other interesting sites, and advertising from Google AdSense and Amazon.com. A few special features:

• "Unitarian Universalism" offers several handy links, including my annotated guide to Unitarian Universalist blogs, Kinja.com's UU blog digest, and the UUpdates aggregator of UU blogs and other sites with RSS.

• "Recent comments" shows you the names of people who have contributed their own thoughts to my blog entries. Click the links and see what other people are responding to, and please leave a comment of your own. Your e-mail address will never be published on this site, although you must use a real address to comment here. If you prefer to write to me directly, please do.

• "Subscribe" offers several ways to keep up with the blog. Enter your email address to get the latest Philocrites posts in your inbox, or syndicate Philocrites (or my Scrapbook) in your feed reader.

• "Scrapbook" pulls the latest posts from my companion blog, which features brief quotes from news stories, blogs, and magazines. I feature the two most recent Scrapbook entries (and a handful of even shorter Miscellany headlines) on the front page of Philocrites.

Disclosure: I link to sites that I don't necessarily agree with. Further disclosure: I am not trying to be comprehensive, especially regarding Unitarian Universalism. I welcome news about groups and Web sites related to Unitarian Universalism and liberal religion, but I offer no guarantees that I'll feature them here. I am not an apologist for Unitarian Universalism, and even though it's my religious tradition, I often take a critical attitude toward developments within the UU movement. Final disclosure: This site in no way should be taken to represent or reflect the views of the Unitarian Universalist Association, its officers, employees, board, member congregations, General Assembly, ministers, or anyone else. The opinions I express are my own; the opinions I quote belong to the people I quote.

My motto is a statement by Alfred North Whitehead: "A clash of doctrines is not a disaster, it is an opportunity."

That's a lot of introduction. Please feel free to wander around. I'm glad you're here, I welcome your feedback, I hope you find something worth your time. I hope you'll be back.

Last updated 6.27.07.

Copyright © 2004 by Philocrites | Posted 20 April 2004 at 6:53 PM

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