Urban Onramps

Michael Gerson says no:

The argument that government is often a flawed instrument to improve social conditions has merit. There are limits to take-a-number-and-wait bureaucratic compassion — and tremendous advantages to the commitment and sacrificial love of volunteers. Which is precisely why compassionate conservatism looks first to the expansion of private, community responses to poverty and need.

But the scale of these needs is sometimes overwhelming. Private compassion cannot replace Medicaid or provide AIDS drugs to millions of people in Africa for the rest of their lives. In these cases, a role for government is necessary and compassionate — the expression of conservative commitments to the general welfare and the value of every human life.

For millennia, artists, thinkers and politicians have shaped their image of Jesus, often into a mirror image of themselves. But the goal of Christianity is to allow Him to shape us, not the other way around. And just as Jesus the leftist revolutionary is a distortion, so is Jesus the libertarian.

Harambee is jumping in with these people.

I’ve been reading Christine Scheller’s blog lately. Her son took his own life a little while back. I don’t know how to respond, because it’s been devastating for the family, and it’s painful to just read and connect. But my thoughts and prayers are with Christine and the whole family and friendship network and will continue to be with them. They are walking through the valley of the shadow of death right now. At the same time I’ve been learning a lot from Christine’s insights about people, life’s difficulties, depression, inner pain, and many other important things.

In the not-too-distant future, I’ll take over the “Urban Take” column at Youthworker Journal. I’ll replace Efrem Smith, who I assume is moving on up to Major League Baseball Commissioner or somesuch. Dig it.

Get your own mission statement at the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator.

Someone asked me where I get the links for bits that appear here on Urban Onramps. I go around to a bunch of sites, but there are a few that are guaranteed for daily unique finds.

Lucianne: The content is generated by the user community. Registered users can post news articles that appear at the home page. So it’s not just some hotshot blogger picking and choosing links, but the proverbial Army of Davids.

Instapundit: This site IS the hotshot blogger picking and choosing, etc. He’s a libertarian, which I’ve come to realize means he’s less likely to protect the conservatives over the liberals, the Republicans over the Democrats, but rather he’ll just post whatever is interesting regardless of who is pleased and who is not.

The Corner: Frothy team blog with a buncha thoughtful and not-in-lockstep right wingers.

Techmeme: Buncha Silicon Valley types who link to lots of Silicon Valley bloggers, VCs, company types, and others.

Anglican Mainstream: Some folks say that what is happening to Christians in England might happen here in 10, 15, 20 years. This is where I keep an eye on Christianity on that cold, stony island.

Sam turns 8 tomorrow. He is a cancer survivor. I look at him with wonder. If this were the 1970s, he would not be here. We are playing baseball on the Wii right now.

Jay Nordlinger attended the Middle East Economic Forum and shares his personal notes here.

The above headline contains the words of Mr. Skeptical Environmentalist himself, Bjorn Lumborg, writing in the UK Guardian: MONEY FOR NOTHING:

To put this in perspective, €2.5bn could double the number of hospitals in Denmark. And, if we really wanted to benefit the world, €2bn could halve the number of malaria infections, saving 850 million lives this century. People in the affected countries would live much better and become more productive, benefiting their children and grandchildren in 2100. The last €500m could fund an eight-fold increase in research and development aimed at improving CO2-efficient energy technologies, enabling everyone in the long run to reduce emissions much more dramatically, and at much lower cost.

So, should we halve malaria while dramatically increasing the possibility of solving global warming in the medium term? Or should we make a pledge that does 2,000 times less good and barely alters the global climate?

It gets worse….

Read the whole article.

I’ve been a tad under the weather for a few days. I’ve been able to function. But the cough, runny nose, etc. have been constant. I’m glad it’s just low level. I’ve been able to keep up with work and even did my seminar with Jeremy Del Rio at UYWI yesterday. But last night it got a little worse. Now I’m home with Sam, Kafi is out shopping with Micah and Gabrielle, and I just hope I get all the way better soon. It was good to be at UYWI yesterday and see so many people. It was a highly profitable 7 hours. In the midst of all that, I help connect a major donor with World Vision in relation to Myanmar recovery. That connection required a 30 minute conference call on my cell. I paced back and forth in front of the main UYWI conference entry area, and some folks sitting at a booth watched me pace the entire time. After a while they got this weird look on their faces. Oh well, that’s how I think best, by pacing.

• Only Greentech can save U.S. Economy, says Uber-Investor
• Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue approves $50 million School Choice Program: 10,000 Low Income Kids Stand to Benefit; Momentum for School Choice Movement Growing
• A light bulb that has been burning for 107 years straight
• UK releases classified UFO files: Get your conspiracy on!
• Snackr is an RSS addict’s dream come true
• Amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius allowed to compete in Beijing Olympics: check out the photos
• Little League, Huge Effect

The China Earthquake, May 16:

Every day I have reported the story of the Sichuan earthquake it has seemed impossible to imagine things getting worse. Hanwang, with its bodies lying everywhere, was grotesque. Dujiangyan, where hundreds of teenagers were dragged out dead from the mud, was nightmarish. But every day is worse than the next. No one knows what horrors await after Wenchuan, directly above the epicentre, is opened up. At this stage, there can be precious few survivors there. But Beichuan is a truly horrendous sight. The prospect of the death toll reaching beyond 50,000 looks increasingly likely….

Negotiating the rubble is torturous; finding survivors even worse. Outside a kindergarten, parents went around calling the names of their children. A pile of small bodies had already been recovered and lay on the ground. This earthquake happened during school time, at 2.30pm.

Here’s a data-updating article via the Christian Medical Fellowship of Britain. The sections on “Serious Psychiatric Consequences,” “Consequences for the Father,” and “Consequences for Siblings” caught my attention. Very little research has been done on the effects of abortion on the father and siblings. This all connects back to that book I read a few months back, Unprotected.

Check this table from the Pew Hispanic Center’s Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006.

I just ordered this book, gonna read it this week.

Speaking of this week, on Friday morning Jeremy Del Rio and I do a workshop together at the Urban Youth Workers Institute.

Hmm… now I’m gonna see who actually reads this blog. More news: I’m gonna do a column at Youthworker magazine starting later this year.

My people, my people: AP: Evangelical leaders say their faith is too politicized

I’ve read chunks of the manifesto. I like what I’ve read so far. There is some wonderful language about how Evangelicals should engage the public square in the future. I’m thinking about signing it.

See for yourself: the web site for An Evangelical Manifesto

• The Latest Office Perk: Getting paid to volunteer: “For many young job hunters, a prominent employee-volunteerism program is a strong selling point. A 2006 survey of 1,800 13-to-25-year-olds found that 79% want to work for a company that cares about how it affects or contributes to society. Sixty-four percent said their employer’s social and environmental activities inspire loyalty, according to Cone Inc., a Boston-based brand strategy and communications agency, which conducted the survey. “Millennials are saying, ‘I don’t want to park my values at the door,’” explains Carol Cone, chairman and founder of the firm. “They’re asking companies: ‘What’s your purpose? What do you stand for? How are you giving back?’”
• 24 Hours on the Big Stick: What you can learn about America on the Deck of the USS Roosevelt: “Some say John McCain’s character was formed in a North Vietnamese prison. I say those people should take a gander at what John chose to do–voluntarily. Being a carrier pilot requires aptitude, intelligence, skill, knowledge, discernment, and courage of a kind rarely found anywhere but in a poem of Homer’s or a half gallon of Dewar’s…. Some people say John McCain isn’t conservative enough. But there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo. Conservatism is also a matter of honor, duty, valor, patriotism, self-discipline, responsibility, good order, respect for our national institutions, reverence for the traditions of civilization, and adherence to the political honesty upon which all principles of democracy are based. Given what screw-ups we humans are in these respects, conservatism is also a matter of sense of humor.”
• former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu supports World Vision child sponsorship appeal: in a series of London adverts
• Barna Research on use of technology in churches: “Blogging is also invading the ministry world. One-eighth of Protestant churches (13%) now have blog sites or pages through which people can interact with the thoughts posted by church leaders.” I wonder, how many of these church blogs are regularly updated? Church leaders looking for blogging approaches should check Eugene Cho’s blog.
• The Angry Black Woman sez - “Things you need to understand #9: You don’t get a cookie”
• Fewer Latino Immigrants Sending Money Home: “Only 50 percent of some 18.9 million Latino immigrants in this country now send money regularly to relatives in their home countries, compared with 73 percent two years ago” according to a survey by the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.
• START DRILLING: This energy solutions-focused op-ed is by a WashPost columnist who is on nobody’s list of oil glutton neo-cons.
• 58% of black children can’t swim: according to a survey by USA Swimming
• GovernmentisGood.com: This one is for the libertarians out there, government is good for something
• Loyal to the Bitterness: Peggy Noonon is not fazed by the Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle
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