From the India Times:

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar last Saturday, devastating large parts of the country. The toll, which has been estimated at over 100,000 by western diplomats, is likely to rise further as rescue workers struggle to reach remote settlements, while the nationwide number of displaced people could reach millions.

• Watch the Web for Climate-change Truths in the UK Telegraph

• Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre

• Watts Up With That? by Anthony Watts

The mayor of the hurricane-hit city made an impassioned plea to Congress to pass the Colombia free trade agreement for New Orleans’ sake. He knows how badly his city needs every break it can get, three years after the biggest disaster to ever hit a U.S. metropolitan area.

“New Orleans is becoming an even greater international city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Nagin wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last November, “and we are making every effort to capitalize on trade liberalization that will flow from these FTAs (free trade agreements). Our port system is ideally situated to take advantage of the Latin American FTAs.”

The article gives more details. It also contains a nice shot of President Bush, Mayor Nagin, and newly elected Indian-American governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.

• Freshman 15 theory takes a pounding
• When Tech Innovation has a Social Mission: The article is about TechSoup. Harambee is a TechSoup member.
• UrbanFaith.com is coming soon
• Behold Wordpress, Destroyer of CPUs: geeky. informative comment thread. I’m off to install the wp-cache plugin. not that i get that much traffic.
• Many LA Students Frightened and Depressed, Study Finds: This one is a subject of conversation around LA
• Scientists located Super-Mum: biochemical evidence of the awesomeness of mothers: “SCIENCE has finally caught up with what mothers have been saying for years: they are super-women with super-powers thanks to an influx of hormones during pregnancy and labour to enable them to cope with the demands of child rearing.”
• A Columnist’s Parting Advice: “Lesson No. 1: The numbers don’t lie. They can be stir-fried, oven-fried or convection-baked, but in the end they always hold the keys to the kingdom. Lesson No. 5: Risk isn’t a four-letter word. A good rule of thumb is that before you buy, instead of asking how much you can make, first ask how much you can lose. That is what the smart guys do.”

We must also do more to help children when their schools do not measure up. Thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our Nation’s Capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other non-public school. Sadly, these schools are disappearing at an alarming rate in many of America’s inner cities. So I will convene a White House summit aimed at strengthening these lifelines of learning. And to open the doors of these schools to more children, I ask you to support a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. We have seen how Pell Grants help low-income college students realize their full potential. Together, we’ve expanded the size and reach of these grants. Now let us apply that same spirit to help liberate poor children trapped in failing public schools. (Applause.)

UPDATE: This is great: White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-based Schools. I think they are talking about us.

I thank God for Sam.

Democrats on the Economy in 1996:

“Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades.” (President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996)

Democrats on the Economy in 2008:

“The bottom line is that this administration is the owner of the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover.” (Senator Charles Schumer, Press Release, March 7, 2008)

The black residents are seeking a decision by the council to enact the so-called Jamiel’s Law, named after Jamiel Shaw, a promising and law-abiding 17-year-old high school student allegedly shot by an illegal immigrant, 18th Street Gang member Pedro Espinoza. The noxious Espinoza, who has a massively long rap sheet, was arrested and then released by the LAPD shortly before he allegedly murdered Jamiel.

Via Jill Stewart at the LA Weekly

Here are some pictures of the kids:

(above) It’s Samuel feeding baby Gabrielle on my bed.

(above) Here’s Sam at City of Hope last week. He went for his monthly check up. It’s all good. He’s not only done with chemotherapy (he finished in November), he’s now officially done with Bactrim, too. This was the second hospital visit in a row where he did not scream bloody murder when the nurse drew blood by inserting a needle into his arm. All this time - more than three years - Sam got blood draws via a needle into his chest port. Psychologically, it’s a different thing to get a straight needle into the arm than to get one into his chest port. So I’m glad he’s getting stronger about regular blood draws.

(above) Here’s Micah on stage at my church’s Easter Sunday service. This was during rehearsal.

(above) I was in the backyard the other day, washing down the patio, and Micah wanted to play with the hose. She loves it. She would sit there for an hour if she could, just letting the water run.

(above) Here’s Micah at ballet class. They did a performance that was beyond simplistic, but hey, the kids are 3 and 4. Micah loves ballet, hip hop dance, writing her name on paper, painting, chalk drawing, singing along to Alicia Keys’ “No One” and U2’s “it’s all right, it’s all right” (i.e. Mysterious Ways), and slugging her brother in the back.

“This is the best evidence yet that caffeine equivalent to one cup of coffee a day can help protect the brain against cholesterol.”

RELATED: Muslims leaving Islam in droves. Interesting article, but the numbers and rapid impact seem a bit fantastic to me.

PROTEST & INVEST
and other insights into urban and multiethnic ministry

The past 10 days will be remembered as the time the U.S. government discarded a half-century of rules to save American financial capitalism from collapse.

On the Richter scale of government activism, the government’s recent actions don’t (yet) register at FDR levels. They are shrouded in technicalities and buried in a pile of new acronyms.

But something big just happened. It happened without an explicit vote by Congress. And, though the Treasury hasn’t cut any checks for housing or Wall Street rescues, billions of dollars of taxpayer money were put at risk. A Republican administration, not eager to be viewed as the second coming of the Hoover administration, showed it no longer believes the market can sort out the mess.

“The Government of Last Resort is working with the Lender of Last Resort to shore up the housing and credit markets to avoid Great Depression II,” economist Ed Yardeni wrote to clients.

For the past year, groups like El Centro de Accion Social, the Pasadena NAACP, the California Coaches Coalition, Amer-I-Can, the Neighborhood Outreach Workers and the Western Justice Center, among many others, have quietly chipped away at the problem, according to area activists.

“We need to concentrate on our similarities, not our differences,” said Israel Esteban, executive director of the upcoming Pasadena Marathon and an activist who has worked on building bonds between the city’s blacks and Latinos. “We have more in common than we have different.”

To highlight the commonalities and continue the dialogue, El Centro de Accion Social and Pasadena NAACP have organized a “Peace and Unity Walk,” beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Villa Parke Community Center. From there, blacks, Latinos and anyone else who wishes to join will walk to the Jackie Robinson Community Center, about a mile away on Fair Oaks.

“It’s important to do this and develop trust between Latinos and African Americans, and I think it sends a strong message to our young people,” said Randy Jurado Ertll, El Centro’s executive director, who will walk at the head of the march next to local NAACP branch President Joe Brown.

While a lot has been accomplished in terms of increasing understanding between the two communities, the activists said Wednesday, much more still needs to be done.

“I feel we need to keep talking,” said Tarik Ross, a city commissioner who represents Northwest Pasadena and a program director for the nonprofit community group Amer-I-Can. “Young African Americans and Latinos need to start communicating.”

The orange-flavored, sugar-free lollipop they devised is infused with a natural ingredient found in licorice that kills the primary bacterium causing tooth decay, Streptococcus mutans….

…(there are more innovations) in the works to target bacteria wreaking havoc in the nose, ear and gut, to name just a few.

Why then are so many business leaders ambiguous about markets?

Apart from resenting market disciplines, many businessmen have not proved immune to the neo-Keynesianism still dominating much economic policy throughout the world. An example is some private bankers’ refusal in the present credit-crunch to contemplate letting any significant financial institution fail – no matter how insolvent it may be. Hence, they agitate to have governments and central banks provide special-financing for ailing institutions, thereby, in classic Keynesian fashion, putting off the ultimate reckoning instead of actually addressing the problem by letting bankrupt financial houses go, well, bankrupt.

Another source of business market-ambivalence is, surprisingly enough, many business schools. We often assume business schools produce hard-charging, wealth-creating capitalists. Undoubtedly some do. But close inspection of many business schools’ curricula reveals their primary focus is on management – accounting, financial, personnel, and process management – rather than free competition and entrepreneurship. While an important aspect of business, management per se is not about risk-taking. Management is mostly about planning and control. It often struggles with, and is sometimes wary of, economic creativity.

Clearly it’s not enough for business to be “pro-business.” Business leaders need to be pro-free enterprise, pro-free competition, and pro-free trade. Otherwise they risk simply becoming lobbyists, helping to create a world in which political influence counts for more than entrepreneurial ability, consumers pay more for lower-quality/higher-cost goods, and the poor in developing nations are locked out of the global markets that give them more hope of a better life than any amount of foreign aid.

To paraphrase St. Luke’s Gospel: “Businessman, heal thyself!”

I love the way this article begins, with this Adam Smith quote: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

NB: All right, I’ve got just one more quick question for you. Last time I saw you, you’d just gotten an iPhone. How’s that working out for you?

ROVE: I love it. My life has changed. I have a shred of coolness. I’ve got my 3,500 people in my addressbook on the phone, I can sync my calendar. I keep track of my modest little stock investments. I can check the weather of my house in Washington, my house in Florida, my boy at school, my hunt-lease in south Texas. I can surf the web, I’m just–I get part of my email there.

I mean it is just shocking how much better, how much more productive I am. I no longer carry around a giant address book, if I don’t have my calendar close at hand, I can quickly check it out of my– I don’t have to carry, I used to carry several notecards, now it’s just as easy to scribble on my little notepad, I can take photographs and forward them on immediately, it’s just remarkable.

NB: All right. Well it sounds like Steve Jobs should call you up as a spokesman.

ROVE: There we go, there we go. And not only that, I also have the Mac Book Air which is really cool. Even my wife is jealous of my MacBook Air.

NB: Ahh, well it sounds like you’ll have to get her one then.

ROVE: No I don’t, no I don’t. I’m the only cool one in the family with a MacBook Air.

I think, when I get out of my present cell contract, I might just grab one of these iphone doohickeys.

Whenever Ronald Reagan would mention his suspicion that Mikhail Gorbachev was a secret believer, everyone on the White House staff would scoff, thinking the president naive. When I had the opportunity to speak to Gorbachev a couple of years ago, however, I found myself concluding that Reagan had been onto something after all. Why, I asked, had Gorbachev refrained from putting down the revolution of 1989, just as Khrushchev had put down the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Brezhnev had put down the Prague Spring of 1968? “Because of something I shared with Ronald Reagan,” Gorbachev replied. “Christian morality.”

Now the last leader of the Soviet Union has spent half an hour on his knees at the tomb of St. Francis.

In other news, UCLA and Stanford are playing for the Pac-10 Tourney championship.

Ok, you got me: I’m at the emergency room with Sam. He swallowed a dime. The x-rays show the dime is in his stomach, which means he’ll be just fine. We are just waiting to see the doctor to get the official OK.

See the image below. The white dot to the left of the spinal column is the dime in Sam’s stomach.

I’ve heard about this book for a while. It was written anonymously by an MD who works at a university health center. Warren Throckmorton interviewed this doc back in late 2006:

A superb storyteller, she describes patients who do all the right things: They eat well, exercise, and structure their lives around getting a good education. What they don’t do well is manage healthy intimate lives. One young woman, Heather, told Dr. Grossman that she was depressed but never considered that her depression might relate to a loveless “friends with benefits” relationship with a young man. Dr. Grossman quotes the girl saying, “I’m confused, because it seems like I don’t get the ‘friend’ part, but he still gets the ‘benefits.’” Apparently no mental health or health professional ever told Heather that, for women, an increased risk for depression is associated with casual sex.

Unprotected. I think about the concept of protection a lot, because I have small children. I think about my seven-year-old constantly. He has already survived a bout with cancer at this tender young age. But my neighborhood is full of hazards (one dwelling away from me, a car rolled up on two teen girls, pointed a gun, and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber - two weeks ago). Even more, I think about bullies or twisted-minded minors who might pressure him. They idea of leaving him to fend for himself is crazy. Yet that’s what happens all over our society. It happens in the hood, yes. But this book argues that we have left the hearts and minds of young adults - regardless of their level of affluence - unprotected, and they are suffering because of it. I’ll let you know if I think the book lives up to its hype.

“In 10 weeks, the 80 students had created 50+ applications and in total had over 20 Million installs - with 5 having more than 1 million users.”

The profs reported 10 learnings, some of which apply to urban ministry fundraisers (my comments in itals):

1. It’s never too late to create a winning app: (…and it’s never too late to send out that mailer, make that call, send out that proposal - you never know until you try. Granted, the probability of success decreases as you delay or procrastinate. But get it in! There’s a saying about “showing up” being 80% of the gig. I’ve seen situations where guys show up to a meeting with a suit on, sit there and say nothing, but because they were there they got appointed, selected, or assigned. So it’s not too late.)

2. Simplicity & clarity are key to app success (They are also helpful with your face-to-face meetings, proposals, and public communications. Be straight with people. They know you are there to ask for cash, or eventually will. Give them the information they need to make their decisions, and don’t waste their time. Really, the Golden Rule applies to fundraising as much as it does to anything else. Think of how you like to be approached when people ask you for support, then do unto others…)

3. Aim for speed & flexibility in launch and iterations (OK - this one applies, too. If you don’t know how to phrase something, design something, or where and how to have a meeting, what to say at that meeting - well, get in there, but use an R&D process. Given that you don’t know what will work, don’t create a model or entry point that is resource or time-intensive. Just do something quick and flexible, so that you can go back and change your approach without losing much time or money. Send that query letter, then follow it up. Whether accepted or rejected, contact the people and ASK THEM if they liked the letter, what was helpful, what was better. You’ll be surprised at what people say: “Your letter was wonderful, really inspiring. We just don’t have cash now, or are overcommitted for the next two years. Please contact us in 2009. That sort of thing…)

4. Community cooperation leads to success (in other words, the most successful students shared the most): (I’ll make this one short: I have shared foundation contacts and donors with other ministries, and eventually what goes around comes around. I usually take the risk and have to wait a while. Now, I make sure that the foundation and/or donor is cool with me bridging them to other folks; I don’t move forward without consent and/or knowledge of interest. But as scary as it sounds, when you get a rep for opening up your resources, like-minded people find you and will work with you. Wealth gets increased through — drum roll — free trade (that was for you two, Jeremy and Chris).

5. Individual opinion about apps are worthless, you need to get out there and see what happens: (See #3: Your product is wanted if people take it. It doesn’t matter how great your ministry, proposal, program, etc. are. If no one wants to fund it, or get behind it, you should think twice about what you are doing. You don’t want to be totally market driven, either. But you can’t ignore the responses of others. I’m surprised at how often folks corner themselves by getting stuck on a big vision and ignoring the smaller yet more robust and accessible pieces in their midst.)

6. Copying success is a cheap / fast way to succeed: (Next time you are stuck for an idea on your ministry newsletter, find someone else’s ministry newsletter AND COPY IT. Don’t worry about copyright or plagiarism. In the course of customizing that newsletter to fit your org and/or ministry, you will tweak it enough that it will be all you. I tell people this especially with web sites. You want your web site to do certain things because you think “they” want a web site that does certain things. But I tell you, consider your own likes and dislikes, and design the thing for yourself. Lots of people will share your opinion (not all). So look at my blog. The design is simplistic and emphasizes information, both my blog posts but also visitor comments. Not everyone likes it, but people don’t come to my blog for cutting-edge design and blog tech, they come (I think?) for the content, whatever I’ve blurped up onto the interweb.)

7. Metrics do matter, but today’s tools are too weak: (Huh? Well, don’t believe indirect data. Your web stats could be full of search engine crawler traffic, not real people. Your 4,000 person mailing list could have 3,000 inactive people (non-donors) and you are just wasting postage.)

8. You CAN learn to create a winning app: (You may not think you are a fundraiser. But you can do it. If you think you have to be a fundraiser like some other star fundraiser, or must live up to the standards in someone’s book or fundraising scheme, well, you are in for disappointment. You can’t be someone else. Be your own weird self. And keep a learning posture. Always gaining something new, figuring out how to incorporate it. It will take time, lots of time. I’ve been doing Harambee fundraising for 18 years and I’m continually learning (or, frankly, FINALLY APPLYING) things.)

9. Success comes from the CHAOS / CONTROL Cycle: (What? I have no idea what they’re talking about. Unless they mean embrace chaos (see #3) and turn chaos into control, BUT don’t get stuck in your control. Go out and find some new chaos. I think I’m good at that (wink). And look, if you didn’t have a little bit of tolerance for chaos, why the heck did you get into urban ministry? The lives of the poor are very chaotic, and serving - helping - discipling someone out of poverty is all about moving them from chaos to order. So embrace it in your fundraising, don’t be afraid to try new and chaotic ideas).

10. Mass Interpersonal Persuasion is finally here: Huh? This is a Facebooky thing. But look, here’s a rant…. URBAN MINISTERS OF AMERICA, I AM NOT TAKING THE TIME TO READ YOUR PRINT NEWSLETTERS AND E-NEWSLETTERS. You gotta change your game. There is too much information in the world. Help a brother out. Give some headlines, bullet points, something that is quick and to the point and then invites the reader to go deeper somewhere else. It’s NOT about catching a new donor because of one snazzy communiation piece, but rather building a relationship over time, and UNDERSTANDING that people may or may not read the stuff you send, but they still like you and your ministry and would like to connect. So, in my opinion, I do with Harambee communication what I like: I put lots of info bits, but keep it short. Our e-newsletter can be read at a glance, and if folks want to connect they will email back, or call or visit. But they are informed, yes, they are up to date. They have the information they need or want, and they will connect when they are good and ready.

Ok, then. Just some rapid thoughts…

India’s $30 billion IT/ITES services industry, meanwhile, is slowly and surely losing its competitive advantage.

Most of the 4 million people that the industry employs have now “arrived.” They have breezed through the milestones that their fathers had to toil all their lives to reach. A phone. A watch. A TV. A car. A house.

They are complacent. They will not take risks. They have “outsourced” thinking to their customers.

As the 1:3 cost structure becomes 1:1.5, it will soon become inefficient to use Indian labor. Why not Oklahoma or British Columbia? For many Europeans, Eastern Europe has already become more compelling than India. The pure labor arbitrage equation will no longer balance.

ADP, the largest U.S. payroll services provider, has 45,000 employees worldwide, of which only 2,500 are in India. It has around 1,000 workers in El Paso, Texas, it’s expanding a location in Augusta, Ga., and it’s opening a facility in Jackson, Miss. It’s also growing a location in Halifax, Canada. ADP isn’t moving its workforce to India–it’s hedging its bets geographically. On a recent earnings call, ADP’s chief executive used terms such as “smartshoring,” and “nearshoring” to describe the strategy.
Huh.

Mrs Johns, aged 59, said on Monday that she and her husband had fostered more than 15 children, but had stopped for a number of years owing to work commitments.

A year ago, they decided to apply to be weekend respite carers for children under ten, but after a number of interviews, Mrs Johns said it was made clear that their Christian practices and beliefs made them unsuitable foster-parents.

Last year, the Government introduced new Sexual Orientation Regulations, which outlaw discrimination against homosexuals. Mrs Johns said it was her views on this, and the couple’s desire to take the children to church on a Sunday, which they believed swayed the council’s final decision.

“When we were chatting with council officials after our first application, they started asking questions about our religious beliefs, as we had put down that we are Christians. We explained that we were very involved in our church — I am a Sunday- school teacher — and would want to bring the children with us on a Sunday.

“They then asked about what we would do if the children asked about homosexuality, or were even being bullied about it.”

Mrs Johns said that she would tell them that, as Christians, she and her husband believed homosexuality was wrong. “I would not lie, but, on the other hand, I did not feel it was at all appropriate for children under ten. However, I am a Bible-believing Christian, and would want to tell them what the Bible says….”

After a number of interviews, Mrs Johns said it was made clear to her that the council wanted the application to be withdrawn, but the couple refused. Their case then went to a panel, which deemed them unsuitable.

The case is now being taken up by the Christian Legal Centre, part of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, which says that new laws are making it increasingly difficult for Christian couples to adopt or foster.

There will always be a point in the future when you can get that degree, serve on that board or committee, write that book, take that trip, make that career move. But your children will only be children for a very short time.

That’s Brian McLaren when he came to Harambee for one of our luncheons. That’s me in the background. What you can’t see is a group of 60 or so, mostly Fuller Seminarians, who came to the event.

Kafi is with some girls from Harambee Preparatory School.

What a great shot. It’s Albert Cuellar from Young Life Bay Area, moi, and Dr. Manny Ortiz from Westminster Theological Seminar in the City of Brotherly Love.