A Class Act

Following is a post from Dr.Maxie Dunnam from his recent blog. It is his response to the above video posted on YouTube. He was exactly right to post his original video, not only in the content of his original message, which I posted on my Facebook page, but to post it on YouTube, it is a powerful tool. Right on target for our church and the Church universal. Dr. Dunnam is a wise man, and a modern prophet in my opinion. But, as happens often on Youtube, mainly to celebrities (congratulations Maxie) someone has taken the video, re-edited and tried to make Maxie look ridiculous. So, I have also posted the original video after Maxie's blog post below. His reponse to this is classic Maxie Dunnam, gracious, loving and with a sense of humor. My goal is to use this (funny and interesting..I must admit I laughed very hard :)) attempt to discredit Maxie's original message to give his original intent an even larger viewing....I know Maxie and see him occasionally. I just wish now I had gotten his autograph...I may have been able to sell it on Ebay. :) Welcome to the 21st Century! And thanks, Maxie, for being such a classy guy!

BY Maxie Dunnam: "I have been ‘mashed up’. I didn’t know what that meant until last week. A few weeks ago, I put two messages on You Tube, expressing my opposition to some constitutional amendments that were being presented to the annual conferences of United Methodism around the world. You can view these at www.maxiedunnam.com

Being technologically challenged, this was my You Tube debut. I soon learned the effectiveness of this communication media…positive and negative. Someone called me last week and told me to go on You Tube and view MAXIE MASH UP. There it was, and it was hilarious. I couldn’t wait to have Jerry (my wife) see and hear it.

But maybe I’m naïve. A blogger (gavoweb.com) wrote, "It’s what you get for going on you tube, maxie. A lot has been said over the latest rage in Methodism, taking your political viewpoint to you tube. One thing maxie dunham(he misspelled my name), who seems to have started this should have done his homework on the concept of mashup’s - cause buddy, you’ve been mashedup. I think the fact that someone did this is brilliant, rather slanted, but brilliance as I am sure the egos that decided this vehicle was the way to go didn’t see something like this happening."

Since this is my first venture on you tube, I’m still processing what this means. Knowing that someone would do this, would certainly not have kept me from using you tube to make my case. I’m continuing to laugh, but I’m trying to discern the message. I don’t mind a person seeing me mashed up, provided the viewer sees the message that is being mashed up. There can be no guarantee of that, thus my questioning.

I’m sure the “masher upper” (I don’t know the language) wants to discredit my message and so he does it, not by reasonable response, but by technologically manipulated distortion. That’s void of integrity, to say the least. It seems much easier to get away with such in this new cyber world in which we live. I guess I also feel that I can take this kind of bizarre mashed up response as well as the vitriolic incivility that characterizes so much of internet communication.

I’ve gone on YouTube two or three times in the last few months to watch the laughing baby and the drunk air line pilot videos. A good laugh is healthy for any of us. I think I’ll keep MAXIE MASH UP to look at when I am tempted to take myself too seriously. At last count, the laughing baby 2,821,370 hits, and the drunk pilot had 1,122,783. MAXIE MASH UP had barely 100. That gives me some hope. MAXIE MASH UP is not as funny as I thought it was. I bet it will be taken off you tube by the time you read this."