Asia is home to about 2/3 of the world’s poorest people. Underdeveloped nations in Asia (the same is true elsewhere) struggle to maintain a foothold in an ever-globalizing world economy. An approach to helping solve some of these problems was explained in The Japan Times today. Lennart Bage, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development for the United Nations, writes that since 1990 the per capita e of the entire Asian region has increased by 75 percent. What was...

I read an interesting article by Dan Griswold today in Cato’s Letter, a quarterly publication of the Cato Institute where Griswold is Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies. Griswold’s article, “Faith, Commerce, and Freedom,” traces the history of the distrust that many Christians feel towards capitalism — and the resulting push for big government to regulate. Griswold points out that William Blake, a British Christian poet (1757–1827) wrote a poem titled “Jerusalem” which, in turn, was turned into...

Bono: Heart in the right place, head not quite there yet For those PowerBlog readers who don’t follow the world of rock and roll, the man in the photo on the left is Bono (aka Paul Hewson), the lead singer of the biggest rock and roll band in the world – U2. (I pelled to mention that I am Acton’s resident U2 Superfan: the proud owner of The Complete U2, regular attender of U2 concerts – I took that photo...

The AP passes along this story about the use of blogs by corporations and executives. Some of the good advice includes: “Don’t go toward fake blogs. Don’t launch character blogs. Use a blog for what it’s for, transparency,” said Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz & Co., a New York PR firm. … He and other PR professionals can rattle off blogs gone wrong — usually “fake blogs” that stir up the ire of bloggers by hiding...

Colson speaks at Calvin Seminary’s Spring Banquet. Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, spoke at Calvin Theological Seminary’s Spring Banquet, endorsing the school’s Dutch neo-Calvinist heritage. “Calvin Theological Seminary is an underappreciated asset in the evangelical world. There’s nothing the evangelical world needs more than a bracing dose of Kuyperian theology,” he said. The speech also marked the announcement of the establishment of the Charles W. Colson Presidential Chair at the seminary. Thanks to a major gift from the Richard...

In this month’s issue of Esquire, Ken Kurson extols the virtues of Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s third largest pany. “A Drugmaker reborn” (subscription required) essentially describes why Kurson thinks Sanofi is a great investment, but between his praises of pany sits this tidbit: And yet controlling costs is one of the things I like best about Sanofi. It’s why I believe in its strategy of growth through acquisition. And it’s why I think the merger with Aventis will be so effective....

Edward Southerland wonders, “Does the job description for school administrators require that you leave mon sense at home when you go to work?” One of the reasons he asks the question: In Tennessee, the student giving the valedictory speech started with a joke. “You have given us the minimum required attention span to master any station at any McDonald’s anywhere.” The next line was “Of course, I’m only kidding. Eagleville is a fine institution of higher learning with a superb...

With France voting NO for the ratification of the EU Constitution, a spotlight now follows the current voting on the same issue in the Netherlands. The world is expecting the Dutch to follow suit with the French, although not necessarily for all the same reasons. The constitution of the EU grants more power to the developing centralized EU government in Brussels. Many fear that this will lead to a diminishing role of their own “state” governments and in turn cause...

In the latest issue of the New York Times Magazine, the article “Monkey Business,” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt examines economist Keith Chen’s research with capuchin monkeys and money. Here’s another case of science, in this case economics, being used to “prove” the continuity between (and therefore equivalency of) humans and animals. The implicit message is that we are really not all that different from our fellow creatures, nor that special. This seems almost absurd, but it’s...

‘God Makes No Mistakes’ You may not know it, but Loretta Lynn is a pretty good theologian. She’s so good, in fact, that some contemporary theologians, open theists like Clark Pinnock, for example, could take some lessons in orthodoxy. The lyrics to a song off her most recent record, Van Lear Rose, that illustrates her high view of God. Here are the words to “God Makes No Mistakes”: Why, I’ve heard people say Why is this tree bent Why they...