Urban Onramps

Cato Unbound: Mexicans in America

Interesting exchange between Richard Rodriguez and Victor Davis Hanson at the Cato Unbound site. Rodriguez leads off with a lyrical reflection on Mexicans in America, and Hanson brings him down a peg (or two).

posted Aug 16, 2006, 9:57pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

Sam likes 1 Kings

I’ve been reading the book of 1 Kings to my son Samuel as his bedtime story. He’s enthralled. Last night, and then again tonight, he perked up when he got into the bed: “Daddy, get your Bible.” We’ve gone through the first three chapters. It’s gruesome stuff - Benaiah did slay Joab at the altar and suchlike. Tonight we read the part where Solomon proposes cutting the baby boy in two and sharing him with the two prostitutes. My son is six. I did pause for a moment, considering whether this stuff is healthy for him. I feel fine; we’re forging ahead. Plus my son wants more of the Scriptures. “Daddy, read Bible story!”

posted Aug 16, 2006, 9:47pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

Danno: “Why I am no longer Emergent”

Interesting:

So, I guess it boils down to… I am no longer emergent because of the emerging church people. Sorry. I realize it is probably mostly my fault – that darn lack of self-confidence and all. But it also raises the question of motive for me. Why do people want to be aligned with a specific part of the church? Why can’t it just be “the Church”? Is it because they really don’t like some people; they want to have their “own thing”; they just want to hang with the “cool crowd”? I don’t think that is it for most people emerging… but it can certainly “look” that way to some.

posted Aug 16, 2006, 9:38pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

round-up Aug15

• Pasadena School District cuts school bus services: budgets are tight everywhere
• Indian premier calls for end to killing of unborn girls: terrible that it’s even an issue
• The 25 most important questions in the history of the universe: in case you were wondering. includes the name of the guy whose voice you hear on AOL: “You’ve got mail!”
• Rose Bowl Aquatics Center: My Sam Sam is going to get swimming lessons
• An Emergent Village affirmation of faith?: over at Scot Mcknight’s blog, Jesus Creed
• Pasadena liquor license request denied
• Pre-school workforce underpaid, undertrained
• Global warming in 1930
• Stingy (Rolling) Stones avoid tax on £240m fortune: …by parking their money in Holland. U2 uses the same Dutch financial director.
• How to ask foundations for money

and finally…

It’s Micah! With Auntie Aziza!

posted Aug 15, 2006, 10:29pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

Andrew Jones is carrying the ball

Next Thursday, August 24th, he’ll be in Chattanooga, TN briefing 12-15 foundations on what God is doing in the global emerging culture. Let me say this baldly: This is a big deal. Those foundations control a gang of cash, influence, and “experiential” resources (what a poor choice of words; I just mean to say that the experience these foundations have in funding missions projects is valuable, very valuable). This could open up all sorts of good things for innovative Christian leaders around the globe - or they could just stick their heads into the sands and wish things were different. So pray for Andrew.

posted Aug 15, 2006, 10:10pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

Andy Bales

My friend Andy Bales is mentioned in this Steve Lopez-authored L.A. Times article about the homeless in today’s paper, Drive-By Fixes Not Enough for Skid Row:

Last week I toured the Hope Gardens facility in Sylmar with Andy Bales, executive director of the Union Rescue Mission on skid row. He’s in the process of moving elderly women off the row and into the lovely former retirement home in the middle of nowhere. But there’s no telling whether he’ll be able to move several dozen children out there too, along with their moms.

It all makes perfect sense, with the plan calling for the moms to take college courses and work toward self-sufficiency. But a few hill-dwellers moaned and whined a couple of miles away in Kagel Canyon, and now the rescue mission may have to battle Mike Antonovich and other L.A. County supervisors to get those kids out of harm’s way and into Hope Gardens.

Andy is the president of the Union Rescue Mission.

posted Aug 15, 2006, 9:53pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

the upside of grant writing…

…is that you create documents that will come in handy later. It’s a total drag when I come across a grant application that requests arcane information. But after I’ve put together the list of donors since our inception who like the Trojans and think the Yankees are done for, well, that list is useful for something, ain’t it? I’m being facetious with my example, of course, but there are times when I’m slogging through papers and wish I was anywhere but here. A fat check usually washes away the memory of the pain, though.

posted Aug 15, 2006, 10:13am by Rodolpho Carrasco

Black colleges recruit Hispanics

Yo, this is a big deal:

…the competition for black students has increased as public colleges nationwide try to improve diversity by recruiting more minorities. Some state higher education systems, especially in the South, also have been forced by federal courts to meet specific black recruitment goals under desegregation lawsuits still lingering from the 1960s.

“All colleges want to have a presence of African-American male students on their campus. It makes the competition very tough,” said Sterling Hudson, dean of admissions and records at Morehouse.

Five years ago, Texas Southern hired a Hispanic recruiter and began producing recruitment materials targeting Hispanics. Since then, Hispanic student enrollment has grown from 316 to almost 550. Right now, Hispanics make up about 5% of the 11,000-student body.

“We have the advantage as a HBCU to cater to the minority — small classroom, small family-type environment,” said Hasan Jamil, assistant vice president for enrollment services.

Howard has about 170 Hispanic out of 11,500 students after several years of focused recruiting. Interim admissions director Linda Sanders-Hawkins said with the country’s growing Hispanic population, recruiting is not as tough as it once was.

I wouldn’t mind teaching and/or researching in such an environment…

ht: djchuang

posted Aug 14, 2006, 10:55am by Rodolpho Carrasco

another book about a guy living out his last days

A while back I recommended The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a fictional account of Simon Bolivar (”The Liberator of South America”) and his final journey up the river. It’s an old guy’s last days. He’s an insomniac. His dreams are unfulfilled. Nothing brings him satisfaction. Why I like this book, well, it would take a while to explain it to you. Let me just say that when Marquez describes the river, I can feel it.

So now I’ve gone and ordered a book I read a while ago, that was also given to me by my brother Andrew. I’m forever indebted to my brother for introducing me to the writings of P.J. O’Rourke. I got “God Knows” by Joseph Heller from Andy, too, though I’m not sure he read it before I got my meaty paws on it; sorry if I snatched it out from under you. Anyway, God Knows is on its way from Amazon and I look forward to reading it. It’s a very fictional, and irreverent, account of the end of King David’s life. It opens up with a description of Abishag the Shunammite (1 Kings chapter 1, bible scholars):

Abishag the Shunammite washes her hands, powders her arms, removes her robe, and approaches my bed to lie down on top of me. I know even as she takes gentle possession of me with her small arms and legs and with her tiny plump belly and fragrant mouth that it will do no good. My shivering will continue, and she will fear she has failed me again. The chills that rack me grow from within.

That’s Heller’s amplification of this biblical text:

1 Kings 1:1-4: “When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. So his servants said to him, “Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm. Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful girl and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no intimate relations with her.

On the second page we learn that Heller’s David has trouble sleeping - what’s with the old battle-weary kings (Bolivar, David) having a hard time sleeping? I just find it fascinating.

Rest assured, I’m not recommending this book to the youth at the ministry or at church. It’s theologically mature subject matter, because Heller’s David is contending with God (to put it mildly), if I recall the book correctly (I read it ten years ago, at least). But I’m looking forward to reading it. I also ordered A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare by Rene Girard. This is another book I read years ago, mimetic desire and all of that. I was a junior at Stanford. Amazon is slick, because somehow it figured out that I like Girard (I’d ordered a Girard book from Amazon previously) and sent me an email recommending this book. I opened the email, read the recommendation, and clicked “buy.” When I’m going to read that book, I don’t know, cuz I’ve got a lot of work to do these days, at Harambee and at my home. Then again, when I first read Girard’s book it was not on any of that quarter’s class reading list; it was my “fun” book. I’m a geek, yes. But you already knew that.

posted Aug 13, 2006, 10:22pm by Rodolpho Carrasco

12th anniversary

Kafi and I have been married for 12 years as of today. I love her with all my heart. Yet I forgot to get her a card. But the day is young! I love you, boo. We were married on August 13, 1994 on the hottest day of the year. The location was that Messiah Lutheran Church on Orange Grove near the Northwest Neighbors folks. The church had no air conditioner, only a swamp cooler. It was soooo hot. Michael Mata and Derek Perkins officiated. It was a good day. Today, in celebration, we are going to do some very “married with kids” types of things. We’re going to church at PCOG. We’ll come home and have lunch, likely stopping at Mi Casa Restaurant on Fair Oaks to pick up some Mexican rice for este Samuel. Kafi and the kidz will take a nap. I’ll - do something. Probably my blogging hobby (I like tweaking templates, what can I say?). But we have a big board meeting at Harambee coming up in just over a week, and I have some docs to prepare for Monday mail-out. I may do that. By 5pm or so Kafi and I will head out to light dinner (we are both watching what we eat) and a movie. I’ll even go for a chick flick, though I suspect I can get my wife to compromise with Talladega Nights. And then we’ll come home and fall into a deep coma-like sleep. That, my friends, is a great day when you’ve been married 12 years and have two chirrens.

posted Aug 13, 2006, 9:37am by Rodolpho Carrasco