Via CrossLeft, which promises to bring “balance” to the Christian voice, this short and interesting piece from Larry James’s blog Urban Daily, which documents his reflections as “president and CEO for Central Dallas Ministries, a human munity development corporation with a focus on economic and social justice at work in inner city Dallas, Texas.” Says James, “If your goal munity and human development, you look for ways to avoid the creation of dependence or a neo-colonial approach to relief passion...

In the liturgical calendar of the Western churches, today is Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the Lenten season. Christians around the world will attend services today that feature the imposition of ashes. These ashes represent, among other things, the transience and contingency of created being. Thus, for instance, the Book of Common Prayer contains the following prayer to be said before the imposition: Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these...

This made me think of this. From the NYTimes: “Zimbabwe’s economy is so dire that bread vanished from store shelves across the country on Wednesday after bakeries shut down, saying government price controls were requiring them to sell loaves at a loss. The price controls are supposed to shield consumers from the nation’s rampant inflation, which now averages nearly 1,600 percent annually.” From the poem, “The Incredible Bread Machine”: Now bread is baked by government. And as might be expected,...

Having a small child in the home gives the opportunity for exposure to things you might otherwise never have reason to see. Such is the case with the VeggieTales in my house. We have “King George and the Ducky” on VHS, which gets occasional play on the set. The story itself adapts the tale of David and Bathsheba, but before the story gets underway, there’s a brief prelude. Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato are the stars of the...

I’m contributing to a new blog at National Review Online, called Planet Gore, which focuses on the Global Warming controversy. Check it out. ...

I promise not to belabor this point any further (well, unless something really es in…), but Jay Nordlinger, in the latest National Review, offers more observations [subscription needed] on the religious qualities of “secular” environmentalism, from his perch at Davos. Along the way, he cites my PowerBlog post from a couple weeks ago. The relevant passage: In other words, you can contribute to an anti-global-warming fund in order to relieve your guilt at having used, for example, an airplane. I...

One of the latest iterations of the reality TV craze is the show, “Bad Girls Club,” on the Oxygen network. The premise of the show revolves around a group of young women of diverse backgrounds brought together to live in one house: “What happens when you put seven ‘bad’ girls in a house together – the type of girls who lie, cheat and flirt their way out of trouble and have serious trust issues with other women?” It doesn’t take...

I’m not quite sure what to make of this story from Catholic News Service. Its quotations concerning agricultural subsidies from Fr. Andrew Small, a “policy adviser for the U.S. bishops,” while not all perfectly clear without their context, seem to indicate a shift in pared to earlier statements from the USCCB. Small notes, for example, that the current system “incentivizes people to overproduce” and that it “isn’t helping the people it’s supposed to help.” Does this discussion signal a change...

Last week, Marc posted audio from the Fred Smith’s presentation at the 2007 Acton Lecture Series. Mr. Smith, president and founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, spoke about Corporate Social Responsibility and the dangers associated with the socialization of the corporation. Video of this event is now available online and for download. You can watch it online, (a new window with a Flash video player will open), you can download the file via Acton’s podcast, or download directly as an...

Over at Planet Gore, I responded to Catholic layperson named Mary Colwell who seems to have her theological priorities out of whack: plains that the Catholics are not consistently green, and hopes things will improve. She speaks as a Catholic, but I wonder where she’s getting her theology. She tells readers: “What is the true nature of our relationship with the earth? Get this right and everything else will begin to fall into place.” That’s the Green Gospel speaking. Jesus...