Urban Onramps

Yes, I’m up late. I’m packing. Y que? Tomorrow night I get to see mi familia. Brooklyn, here I come. Or there I go. Anyway, I spoke at a Fuller class on the emerging church taught by Dr. Vince Bacote. Good times. We were in end-class discussion when the earthquake hit. I’ve been through a few of these. I was in the big 1989 San Francisco earthquake, walking across a parking lot at Stanford when every car began hopping like a lowrider and every car alarm went off. I was in the 1994 Northridge earthquake when it was shake, rattle, and roll, and then I could not reach my fiance (now Mrs. Carrasco) by phone for a little while. This was not much compared to that, but you never know with an earthquake. It will shake, lurch, give a low rumble, then go BOOM BOOM BOOM and knock you off your feet. Half the folks in the Fuller class just stood there while the other half got under tables. I realized that folks not from California don’t know what to do cuz they don’t get that clockwork earthquake safety training. So I called out, “Get in a doorway or under a table. Move.” Then folks started moving. Some said they had no fear until I ran for the door and began calling out to them. So be it.

Yeah, I know, I’m the only one who has ever googled him or herself.

The image comes from the Acton Institute DVD on Effective Stewardship. They are kicking things up in this area. Man! I just looked at one of the pages. They’ve got me listed in one section of folks, that section including George Gilder and Michael Novak. Dang. Pride goeth before the fall, and I think I just fell all the way through to China. I dig those guys. My son is 8 and too young to understand what this all means. Maybe later. I think this is the DVD that folks have been emailing and facebooking me about. Folks will hit me randomly and say, “I saw you on that dvd!” and I say, “What DVD?”

I also received in the mail, just today, an Acton book on Environmental Stewardship. It’s called Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. The book contains perspectives from Judaic, Catholic, and Protestant traditions. Excellent resource

Acton is having an event called Toward a Free and Virtuous City that explores faith, Scripture, freedom, liberty and market economics. It’s in September in New York. Here’s the web site. If you are interested in these topics, hit the web site and inquire. A similar event ten years ago got me moving in the direction of integrating my “good intentions with sound economics.”

They’re here, 60 of them. We’ve got Harambee youth, Harambee board members, Leadership Pasadena folks, Pasadena Community Foundation folks, ABC 7 Local News, and more.

There’s a slick shot of me being interviewed by the TV folks. I’m gonna use it somewhere, maybe the old Facebook profile.

From the back jacket:

“General Simon Boliver, one of the Western Hemisphere’s supreme heroes, embarks on a seven-month voyage down the Magdalena River. Forced from power, made old and ill by the pressures of war, passion, victory, and betryal, the General examines his life, confronting the phantoms of his past, reliving the campaigns that brought him renown, and remembering the women he loved for a night or a lifetime. On a journey that is at once a fantasy of triumphal progress and a nightmore of loss and delusions, we come to know the Liberator — the dazzling orchestrator of political and military intrigue, as well as the lover, the libertine, the fighter capable of heroism, mercy, and ruthlessness.”

I feel at peace as I read it. Such a great man came to such a relatively ignoble end. It’s like reading through Ecclesiastes, a reminder to me that we are God’s children first, and that titles and achievements are illusory in the long run.

Dr. John Perkins enters surgery at 2 p.m. CST (just a few minutes from now) to address a health issue that arose unexpectedly on Saturday. His daughter Elizabeth said he is in good spirits, but that any time someone his age (78, I believe) goes into surgery it is a challenge. The family has requested prayer. Updates are available at the Christian Community Development Association web site. Thanks!

UPDATE: 4:50 p.m. PST: JP has yet to enter surgery. The surgeon was delayed. It’s been more than five hour since he was scheduled. We are praying that he will enter surgery soon.

UPDATE: 5:50 p.m. PST: Elizabeth says, “He just went down for surgery. Finally.”

Coming in August, according to David Brody.

Meanwhile, David Bass at The American Spectator wonders if young Evangelicals have delved into Obama’s policy positions.

And they would be correct. It’s my birthday. I’m going to celebrate by working. Hard.

Y que?

I think I’ll stop off at the Apple Store and see what’s new.

Beowulf, Blue Planet, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Nacho Libre, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Ratatouille, The Royal Tenenbaums, Step Into Liquid, U2 Vertigo Concert. Yeah.

I think I was in ninth grade. Maybe it was tenth grade. I truly can’t remember. At the moment I can’t even remember if my high school was a four-year high school or a three-year high school. But I do remember that the person in this photo was a legend in his own mind, he was on his way to being a Chicano in the NBA, and he had decided by this time that he would attend Biola University after high school.

Kafi sent me these images from the in-laws’ house in Brooklyn. It’s Sam and Gaby, and then Gaby playing in a box.

Don’t the specifics of this conversation between Obama and British Tory leader Cameron sound a lot like how President Bush has actually done his work as President?:

ABC NEWS: MICROPHONE PICKS UP PRIVATE CONVERSATION BETWEEN OBAMA AND BRITISH LEADER ON NEED FOR VACATIONS AND “THINKING” TIME

At British Parliament today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, met with Tory Leader David Cameron. Seemingly unaware of an enormous fuzzy boom mike held by ABC News’ Eric Kerchner, the two chatted casually — and privately.

“You should be on the beach,” Cameron told Obama. “You need a break. Well, you need to be able to keep your head together.”

“You’ve got to refresh yourself,” agreed Obama.

“Do you have a break at all?” asked Cameron.

“I have not,” said Obama. “I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who — not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process — said that, should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be…”

“These guys just chalk your diary up,” said Cameron, referring to a packed schedule.

“Right,” Obama said. “In 15 minute increments…”

“We call it the dentist’s waiting room,” Cameron said. “You have to scrap that because you’ve got to have time.”

“And, well, and you start making mistakes,” Obama said, “or you lose the big picture. Or you lose a sense of, I think you lose a feel…”

“Your feeling,” interrupted Cameron. “And that is exactly what politics is all about. The judgment you bring to make decisions.”

“That’s exactly right,” Obama said. “And the truth is that we’ve got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know ten times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so if what you’re trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you.”

By the way, this is a remarkably good approach to leadership.

Read it yourself

Yo, this article appears in Wednesday’s local newspaper:

NONPROFIT TO REVEAL SOLAR PANELS
Pasadena Star-News
By Samantha Bravo, Correspondent
Wednesday, July 23, 2008

PASADENA - Installing solar panels to cut back on energy costs was not particularly high on the list of priorities for Harambee Ministries.

Harambee is mainly concerned with keeping kids off the streets by providing them with a safe learning environment through after-school and summer programs.

But when the Leadership Pasadena Class of 2008 approached Harambee Executive Director Rodolpho Carrasco with the idea of “going green,” Carrasco said the solar move was a lot more doable than he first thought.

After a $15,000 rebate from Pasadena Water & Power and another $15,500 in donations, the $33,000 project ended up costing Harambee just $2,500.

The solar panels being installed this week will decrease energy costs for the private nonprofit organization by 70 percent.

Leadership Pasadena is a group of active leaders from the Pasadena area seeking to promote a stronger community. Carrasco said Leadership Pasadena considered two other nonprofits before choosing Harambee as the project recipient.

Leadership Pasadena raised money for the project, bringing in $10,000 from the Pasadena Community Foundation and $5,500 from private donors.

In addition to saving the organization money, the solar panels will benefit the organization in several other ways, Carrasco said.

“This is a learning opportunity for the children,” Carrasco said.

“We have to teach them differently now, how to manage and limit energy consumption.”

Carrasco said he hopes the solar panel installation also challenges the whole community to think in the long term.

“The change that needs to happen in a neighborhood like ours isn’t going to happen overnight,” Carrasco said.

“This is a lifetime investment.”

Harambee will publicly unveil the solar panels Thursday. Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard will be on hand. A community dinner and presentation by Leadership Pasadena and Harambee leaders will follow.

Residents are welcome to attend. For more information, call (626) 798-7431.

Larry Kudlow:

If a drilling bill ever passes Congress, oil prices will keep on plunging — perhaps all the way to $75 a barrel, which is the profitable break-even point for lifting the extra barrel of oil. That would drive the Dow to somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000, and it would have a huge tax-cut effect on the economy. And, of course, it could completely change the November election outlook in a highly favorable way for the GOP.

The conventional wisdom says Republicans are gonna get clobbered again this fall. But drill, drill, drill would overturn that wisdom. More drilling today would have the potency of the Reagan tax cuts 28 years ago in the 1980 landslide race. But the GOP has got to make the case. And deregulating oil, which is great policy, would offset much of the bad policy pain coming out of the Fannie-Freddie housing bailout.